SECOND HAT-TRICK IN THREE DAYS FOR CHAHAR
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After cruising India to a victory in the series decider against Bangladesh with a brilliant hat-trick, Deepak Chahar claimed his second hat-trick in T20 cricket on Tuesday. Chahar, who plays for Rajasthan in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, picked a hat-trick against Vidarbha. Still, Vidarbha managed to secure a victory..
Medium pacer Deepak Chahar followed up his hat-trick in the final IndiaBangladesh T20I with almost a repeat, taking three wickets in the space of four balls for Rajasthan against Vidarbha in a Group B match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament here on Tuesday.
However, his heroics (four wickets in an over) went in vain as Rajasthan went down by one run (via VJD method), finishing with 105/8 in a game reduced to 13 overs due to rain.
The fast improving Deepak Chahar, who on Sunday became the first India player to take a T20I hat-trick and also the best ever bowling figures (6/7), picked up the wickets of Darshan
Nalkande, Shrikant Wagh and Akshay Wadkar off the fourth, fifth and sixth balls of the final over of Vidarbha’s innings, but missed the three-peat as he bowled a wide in between. His performanced helped Rajasthan restrict the opponents to 99/9 in 13 overs. After scalping Rupesh Rajkumar on the first ball of the over, he dismissed Nalkande off the fourth. However, he delivered a wide the next ball and then dismissed Wagh and Wadkar off the next two to finish with 4/18 in three overs.
Earlier, Vidarbha chose to bat and had a quick start thanks to skipper Faiz Fazal (17) and Akshay Kolhar (19). After some middling performances by the batsmen, the Vidarbha innings imploded and Chahar triggered the collapse.
Chasing 106 for victory, Rajasthan faltered after a bright start provided by Manender Singh, who smashed six sixes in 17 balls before falling for 44.
Opener Ankit Lamba (15, 11 balls, 1 four, 1 six) and Arjit Gupta (12, 9 balls, 1 four, 1 six) were the only other batsmen to reach double figures as the team could make only 105 in 13 overs. Vidarbha tops the standings with 16 points from 4 matches in an all-win record.