A bowler’s dream is to take a hat-trick and win the match for their team. While many achieve this, it’s rare for a bowler to take a hat-trick and still cause their team to lose. However, this is exactly what happened to Delhi bowler Rahul Chaudhary. Playing for South Delhi Superstarz in the Delhi Premier League, Rahul made history by taking the first hat-trick of the league but then conceded runs in the next two balls, leading to his team’s defeat.
The exciting match took place on Monday, August 11, at the Arun Jaitley Stadium between the New Delhi Tigers and South Delhi Superstarz, in the second season of DPL. Chasing a target of 197 runs, the Tigers needed 12 runs to win in the final over with six wickets remaining. The team seemed to be in a winning position, with opener Anmol Sharma having scored 79 runs. The final over then began with high drama.
Rahul Chaudhary, the spinner, bowled the over, having already conceded 35 runs in his previous three overs. However, he performed exceptionally well on the first ball. Rahul dismissed set batsman Anmol Sharma with a catch taken by Aryan Dalal at square leg. On the next ball, Rahul caught out the new batsman Sumit. With this, Rahul was close to his hat-trick, and the Superstarz had a glimmer of hope for victory. Rahul then took his third wicket by dismissing Gulzar Sandhu, making him the first bowler to take a hat-trick in the season.
After taking three wickets in a row, Rahul appeared to be a hero for the team, but the situation changed dramatically. After taking the hat-trick, Rahul bowled a wide delivery that went for four extra runs. This not only wasted the ball but also reduced the target by five runs. On Rahul’s fourth ball, the Tigers’ batsmen took two runs. With five runs needed in two balls, Rahul’s next ball was hit for a six by Abhishek Khandelwal, securing the victory for the team. Thus, Rahul, who had been a hero for the first three balls, became the reason for the loss in the next two.
Before this, the Superstarz had scored a big score of 196 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in 20 overs. Opener Dhruv Kaushik scored 65 runs and Deepak Punia scored 54 runs. Aman Bharti took the most wickets for the Tigers, with three. Despite Rahul’s hat-trick, the Tigers won the match by 3 wickets, with Anmol scoring 79 runs and wicketkeeper Tejasvi Dahiya scoring 72 runs.