Shreyas Gopal picked up the wickets of Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Marcus Stoinis
Rajasthan Royals' leg-spinning all-rounder Shreyas Gopal took a memorable hat-trick, helping Rajasthan limit Royal Challengers Bangalore to 62 for seven in a five overs a side IPL 2019 shootout at the M. Chinnaswamy on Tuesday.
Royals had won the toss and opted to field but rain returned to delay the start of the game by three hours and thirty minutes.
The game finally began after a long delay, courtesy a commendable effort from the ground staff which readied the ground following multiple spells of heavy rain.
RCB skipper Virat Kohli (25 off 7) was on fire from ball one, depositing pacer Varun Aaron for a straight six. The loyal fans of the hosts, who stayed back for hours in the hope of a game, managed to get their money's worth with Kohli smashing Aaron for another six before AB de Villiers (10 off 4) got into the act as the first over went for 23 runs.
However, Gopal brought Royals right back into the game in the following over by removing Kohli and de Villiers off successive balls before sending back Marcus Stoinis for a memorable hat-trick.
With the following batsmen going for the big hits from the word go, RCB did manage to cross the 50-run mark.
Royals pacer Oshane Thomas too made instant impact by taking two wickets in one over.
Goapl was the 16th bowler overall and third bowler from Rajasthan to take a hat-trick. Before him, Ajit Chandila (versus Pune Warriors India) and Pravin Tambe (versus Kolkata Knight Riders) claimed three in a row for the Jaipur franchise.
After Sam Curran for Kings XI Punjab, this was the second hat-trick of the season and 19th overall. Amit Mishra has taken three hat-tricks in the IPL while Yuvraj Singh has two to his name.
(With inputs from PTI)
