T20 World Cup: The 8th edition of the T20 World Cup is underway, with the first few matches seeing some incredible turnarounds. Namibia and Scotland beat Sri Lanka and West Indies in their opening games, which has opened the tournament for every associate team. And it will not be a wrong statement to say that associate teams are putting up a great show in the tournament. Another such performance was seen on Tuesday. But this time, not from the team, but from a bowler.
The 6th match of the tournament between Sri Lanka and UAE is going on at the Simonds Stadium, Geelong. The young leg-spinner from UAE has registered his name with a special feat in the history of the T20 World Cup. He became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in the T20 World Cup 2022. It came in the first innings of the match when Sri Lanka was batting.
Check List of all Hat tricks in T20 World Cup
T20 World Cup: Watch the hat-trick from Karthik Meiyappan vs Sri Lanka
It came at a time when Sri Lanka appeared to be on track for a big score. Sri Lanka were at 117/2 in 14.3 overs with some big hitters to follow. Karthik came out to bowl his 3rd over in the 15th over of the innings. The over started with a double and a single off the first two balls. Then, he bowled a dot ball while Bhanuka Rajapaksa was batting for five runs. But on the next three balls, the 22-year-old dismissed three batters.
On the fourth ball of the over, he bowled a flighted delivery to Bhanuka (5), who saw the opportunity and tried to hit a six. But he wasn’t able to connect with the ball, and the fielder at long-on boundary took the catch. On the next ball, he bowled a googly to the new batter, Charith Asalanka, who mis-read the ball and it took his edge, and the keeper caught the ball. Then, he dismissed Sri Lankan skipper Dasun Shanka for another googly. The ball found the gap between bat and pad and hit the stumps.
The leg-spinner helped UAE restrict Sri Lanka to 152/8 in their first innings. He ended up with a figure of 3/19. Notably, Karthik was born in Chennai, India and was a part of Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League. He was a net bowler for RCB in the 2020 season.
However, both UAE and Sri Lanka need this win badly because whoever loses this game will be out of the tournament. However, it appears that Sri Lanka is winning easily. As per the current scorecard, the UAE are struggling at 45/7 in 12.2 overs while chasing 153 runs. Sri Lanka needs a big win to improve their run-rate.