Right arm pacer Abhimanyu Mithun on his birthday became the first Karnataka bowler to take a hat-trick as the home side demolished Tamil Nadu in the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Bowling the 50th over with figures of 2-32 until then, Mithun stepped up to remove Shahrukh Khan, M Mohammed and Murugan Ashwin to claim his hat-trick and bring the TN innings to a close at 252.
All the wickets in the hat-trick came as a result of batsmen playing loose shots, in a bid to go for quick runs. The final figures of Mithun read 5/34 and he became the first bowler to claim a hat-trick in the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Tamil Nadu at one stage were poised at a comfortable 148-2 in 30 overs with both Mukund (85) and Aparajith (66) looking set. But Manish Pandey’s brilliant captaincy saw Karnataka make a superb comeback into the game and restrict TN to just 252.
Having won all their previous games at the Chinnaswamy Stadium this season, Karnataka came out strongly and made easy work of the target. The plan to open with both Washington Sundar and R Ashwin didn’t work out as both KL Rahul and Devdutt Padikkal started off aggressively.
After Padikkal fell for 11, Mayank Agarwal came out to take control of the game. Agarwal’s 69 coupled with Rahul’s 52 ensured that Karnataka were well stationed at 146-1 in 23 overs before the rain came down pouring.
No more game was possible and Karnataka were declared winners after being 60 rund ahead in the VJD method.
