The ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy saw yet another magnificent moment of individual brilliance when Saurashtra's right-arm medium pacer Chirag Jani took a sensational hat-trick in the penultimate over of Maharashtra's innings in the final of the tournament on Friday, December 2 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Riding on the terrific century from skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad (108 runs off 131 balls) Maharashtra were looking at a score of close to 300 at one stage. But Jani foiled their plans and brought Saurashtra back into the contest.
Jani had figures of 9-1-41-0 when he came on to bowl the 49th over and his last of the game. Without wasting any time he sent Saurabh Nawale packing on the very first ball of the over. He disturbed Nawale's furniture with a deadly yorker and repeated the same as he cleaned up the dangerous Rajvardhan Hangargekar with yet another accurate yorker on the very next delivery.
Hat-trick for Chirag Jani#VijayHazareTrohy2022 #Saurashtra pic.twitter.com/sKwjXOvKCD
— Manan Vaya (@VayaManan) December 2, 2022
Jani had his tail up and steamed into Vicky Ostwal, who replaced Hangargekar in the middle. Jani was smart to attack the stumps as he pitched up his third delivery and to his euphoria, Ostwal missed it completely in an attempt to execute a flick.
Ostwal was pinned right in front of the stumps and to the jubilation of Saurashtra players, he was adjudged leg before wicket and Jani completed a historic hat-trick.
Maharashtra, who were 234 for the loss of five wickets at the beginning of the 48th over, fell apart in the duration of six deliveries and got reduced to 236 for 8 after the completion of the 49th over. Jani's dynamic display in his last over made sure that Saurashtra finished with just 248 runs on the board for the loss of nine wickets at the end of the 50-overs.
Saurashtra have now a very realistic chance of winning their second Vijay Hazare Trophy ever. The last time they tasted success in the tournament was back in 2007-08 when they beat Bengal in the summit clash.
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