Watch: Rashid Khan picks hat-trick during GT vs KKR match, removes Russell, Narine & Shardul: Gujarat Titans (GT) once again came on top of its rival following a sublime display of bowling from seasoned spinner Rashid Khan during the GT vs KKR fixture, held at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The Afghan spinner became the first player to pick a hat-trick of IPL 2023 during Sunday’s (9th April) afternoon game between GT and KKR.
Rashid Khan pulling his side, Gujarat Titans (GT), back into the contest after an early assault from KKR’s Venkatesh Iyer, picked up the wickets of Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Shardul Thakur in three consecutive deliveries.
To give a brief context of the situation, KKR were cruising nicely to reach the score of 204, posted by GT in the first innings. KKR’s left-arm batter Venkatesh Iyer was taking on the bowlers without any discomfort at the score of 150 in the loss of 4 wickets.
Venkatesh Iyer was middling every delivery which he faced and was determined to take his side home, but Alzarri Joseph’s fifth delivery of the sixteenth over caught Venkatesh Iyer off guard. Iyer, who seemed to be struggling with fatigue, played the delivery to long-on, where Shubman Gill was stationed to patrol the boundaries and took a comfortable catch to dismiss the batter.
The wicket of Venkatesh Iyer became the turning point of the contest between GT and KKR. Iyer played a sensational inning of 83 runs in 40 deliveries with the help of eight boundaries and five maximums.
Rashid Khan, who was captaining GT in absence of Hardik Pandya, came to deliver the sixteenth over. The first delivery wasn’t the best from the Afghan spinner, but it manage to pick the wicket of Andre Russell, who tried to pull the googly placed on the leg side. Russell completely misjudged the googly and got under edge of his bat, which then hit his pad and was got tossed up. The wicketkeeper took a few steps and took the simple catch to dismiss Andre Russell.
The second delivery was also a googly on the leg side to the left-handed Sunil Narine, who tries to whack it but only managed to find a fielder. Jayant Yadav placed at deep mid-wicket took the catch comfortably and Sunil Narine had to depart without opening his account. Rashid Khan got two wickets in two and was up and jumping with his nonchalant celebrations.
The hero of the previous match for KKR, Shardul Thakur had to face the hat-trick delivery. Rashid Khan once again unleashed his googly towards the outside off which sharply took a turn to hit the pad of the striker. Shardul Thakur completely lost the line and was straightaway adjudged lbw by the umpire as Rashid Khan completed his IPL 2023 hat-trick.
Watch: Rashid Khan picks hat-trick during GT vs KKR match:
All three wickets fell at a score of 155 runs and suddenly KKR were seven down with a mammoth task ahead. GT was back into the game, however, Rinku Singh had some other plans for the evening, who was watching all his mates getting dismissed from the other end.
Rinku Singh snatched the victory from the jaws of defeat and took KKR over the rope with his ridiculous 21-ball 48 runs knock. Singh smacked Yash Dayal for five consecutive sixes in the final over of the innings to score the 29 runs needed to win the game.
KKR won the game by three wickets and handed GT their first defeat of the season and that too on their own home ground.
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