Picture Credit: IPL/BCCI
In the dying stages of the IPL 2021 match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore, the 2021 season's leading wicket-taker Harshal Patel produced a hat-trick. His feat came in the 17th over of the match as he picked the wickets of big-hitters Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard while also deceiving Rahul Chahar who was there to face the hat-trick ball.
Overall, Harshal conceded 6 runs and picked the three wickets to hammer the last nail in the coffin of the Mumbai innings and guarantee a Bangalore win. As the right-arm bowler achieved the milestone, he began quite an extravagant celebration.
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Patel returned to dismiss Adam Milne in the first ball of his fourth over to wrap up the Mumbai innings for 111 and complete a comprehensive win for Bangalore in the end by 54 runs. He finished with figures of 4/17.
While Mumbai had opted to field first and with the help of Jasprit Bumrah's 3/36 kept Bangalore down to 165/6, in response the Mumbai battles had also got off to a good start with captain Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock adding 57 runs for the first wicket. However, after the wickets of de Kock and later Rohit, the team never got going and kept losing wickets regularly.
Finally, when Harshal Patel came into the attack, the required run rate had gone so high that they had no choice but to go for it from the word go. However, Patel used all his IPL and domestic experience into play, used his variations to perfection and completed a much-deserved hat-trick.
Other than Patel, Glenn Maxwell (56), Virat Kohli (51) were the stars for Bangalore with the bat. Patel was ably supported by Yuzvendra Chahal (3/11) and Glenn Maxwell (2/23) in the bowling department.
The result keeps Bangalore to the third position on the points tally but has seen Mumbai slipping to the seventh position. While Bangalore now have 12 points, MI continues to have 8 points as their losing streak continues in the UAE leg of the tournament. Earlier on Sunday, Chennai Super Kings defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by 2 wickets in a game which will be best remembered for Ravindra Jadeja's game-changing cameo (22 from 8).