Abhimanyu Mithun became the first Karnataka bowler to take a hat-trick in the Vijay Hazare Trophy when he dismissed Murugan Ashwin on the penultimate delivery of the 50th over in the final in Bengaluru. Mithun also became only 2nd player with hat-tricks in both Ranji Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Mithun returned with the excellent figures of 5 for 34 and helped Karnataka bowl out Tamil Nadu for 252 in the Vijay Hazare Trophy final at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Friday. Abhinav Mukund’s well constructed 85 and Baba Aparajith’s 66 were the major highlights for the visitors as both these batsmen went on to add up brilliant 124 runs for the 3rd wicket stand.
Abhimanyu Mithun accounted for the wickets of Murali Vijay (0), Vijay Shankar (38), Shahrukh Khan (27), M Mohammed (10) and Murugan Ashwin (0) to dent the visitors on regular intervals.
Earlier in the day, Manish Pandey won the toss for Karnataka and opted to field on a pitch that offered early support to fast bowlers.
Mithun struck in the very first over to get rid of Tamil Nadu opener Murali Vijay. Vijay poked at a length ball outside off and KL Rahul made no mistake behind the stumps to dismiss TN opener on a duck. Later, Mithun removed Vijay Shankar as the lanky Tamil Nadu all-rounder was caught out by Karun Nair near the boundary for 28.
In the last over of the innings, Karnataka pacer dismissed Shahrukh Khan (27), M Mohammed (10) and Murugan Ashwin (0) to skittle out the visitors in the big finale for mere 252.
For records, neither Karnataka nor Tamil Nadu has lost the Vijay Hazare Trophy final once in their domestic history.
