IPL 2021: A Look At Harshal Patel's Magnificent Hat-Trick In The 17th Over

Harshal Patel just loves bowling to Mumbai Indians, it seems. As he took a hat-trick against a team that he had bullied with a five-wicket haul in their previous encounter of the IPL 2021. In that mat

The big man from the Caribbean, Pollard, followed suit right on the next delivery as Patel struck his leg stump with a slow yorker (108.8 km/h). It angled in after pitching, and struck his leg stump since Pollard was already across his stumps.

Mumbai's young spinner, Chahar, fell as Patel's third victim, dismissed lbw again with a well-disguised slower delivery. It was a third slower ball in a row (114.8 km/h), and it was dipping on to the batter to be a low full-toss on leg. Harshal knew it was out the moment he appealed, and the umpire raised his finger immediately too.

For the record, Patel became the 17th bowler to take a hat-trick in the IPL. Amit Mishra has claimed a record three hat-tricks in IPL history, Yuvraj Singh bagged two, while 15 other bowlers, including Patel, have taken one each.

By getting to 23 scalps, Patel is now the joint-highest wicket-taker by an uncapped player in the competition. He equaled the mark of Yuzvendra Chahal, who took 23 wickets for RCB in 2015. Sreenath Aravind (21 in 2011) and Siddarth Kaul (21 in 2018) are the other two uncapped players with 20-plus wickets in a season.

Patel is also the third RCB bowler in IPL history to claim a hat-trick after Praveen Kumar (versus RR, Bengaluru 2010) and Samuel Badree (versus MI, Bengaluru 2017).