Deepak Chahar almost claims another hat-trick!

Pacer Deepak Chahar

Thiruvananthapuram: Medium-pacer Deepak Chahar followed up his hat-trick in the final India-Bangladesh T20 international with almost a repeat, taking three wickets in the space of four balls for Rajasthan against Vidarbha in a Group 'B' match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament here on Tuesday. However, his heroics (four wickets in an over) went in vain as Rajasthan went down by 1 run (via the VJD method) finishing with 105 for 8 in a game to reduced to 13 overs due to rain.

The fast-improving Deepak Chahar, who on Sunday last became the first India player to take a T20 international hat- trick and also the best ever bowling figures (6 for 7), picked up the wickets of Darshan Nalkande, Shrikant Wagh and Akshay Wadkar off the fourth, fifth and sixth balls of the final over of Vidarbha's innings, but missed the three-peat as he bowled a wide in between.

His performanced helped Rajasthan restrict the opponent to 99 for 9 in 13 overs. After scalping the wicket of Rupesh Rajkumar of the first ball of the over, he dismissed Nalkande off the fourth. However, he delivered a wide the next ball and then dismissed Wagh and Wadkar off the next two to finish with figures of 4 for 18 in 3 overs. Chahar began the over by picking up the wicket of Rupesh Rajkumar Rathod to finish with superb figures of 4 for 18 in 3 overs.

Earlier, Vidarbha chose to bat after winning the toss and had a quick start thanks to skipper Faiz Fazal (17) and Akshay Kolhar (19). After some middling performances by the batsmen, the Vidarbha innings imploded and Deepak Chahar triggered the collapse. His first victim was Rathod, who was caught by his cousin Rahul Chahar. He then had Nalkande caught by Rajnesh Bishnoi, before having Wagh caught by Chandrapal Singh Chundawat.

He then bowled Wadkar to complete a hat-trick. Chasing 106 for victory, Rajasthan faltered after a bright start provided by Manender Singh, who smashed 6 sixes in 17 balls before falling for 44. Opener Ankit Lamba (15, 11 balls, 1 four, 1 six) and Arjit Gupta (12, 9 balls, 1 four, 1 six) were the only other batsmen to reach double figures as the team could make only 105 in 13 overs.

Vidarbha tops the points table with 16 points from 4 matches in an all-win record. In another match, Kerala posted a 75-run win over Manipur thanks to Sachin Baby's knock of 48 and S Midhun'shaul of 4 for 5 in 4 overs of leg-spin.

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