Having sleep-walked through the early part of the final day against Uttar Pradesh, A Mithun came to life dramatically, firing out Piyush Chawla, Amir Khan and Rudra Pratap Singh in successive deliveries to become only the second Karnataka bowler after Javagal Srinath to take a hat-trick on Ranji Trophy debut.
He thus followed up on his six for 86 in the first innings with five for 95 in the second, making for wonderful match analyses of 11 for 181.
“I am delighted, it feels great,” said the 20-year-old, slowly realising that the media glare will accompany him for a while now. “I was a little nervous before the hat-trick ball, but I calmed myself, went ahead and bowled that yorker.” ‘That’ yorker cleaned up Rudra Pratap Singh. “It is my most cherished scalp,” Mithun observed.
“Not only did it bring up the hat-trick, it also was my tenth wicket of the match.”
Thankful for tips from Dodda Ganesh, Mithun could soon come to be known as the Hat-trick Man, too.
He got a hat-trick in under-19 cricket against Bengal, and a hat-trick on debut in under-25 cricket against Hyderabad, both in the 2007-08 season.
Last season, he took nine wickets in an innings against Uttar Pradesh at the under-19 level. Too early to call him a phenom, but this Mithun, he sure has got something.
* A Mithun became the 267th player to represent Karnataka in Ranji Trophy.
* Mithun (6/86 & 5/95) became the ninth bowler to capture five or more wickets and second bowler to claim over ten wickets on debut in Ranji Trophy for Karnataka The right-arm quick joined former off-spinner GV Kumar who took 13 wickets (7/53 & 6/54) on his debut against Tamil Nadu in Bangalore in 1977-78.
* Manish Pandey's maiden century (194) is the fifth highest maiden century by a Karnataka batsman in Ranji Trophy.
* Thilak Naidu took 200th catch in Ranji Trophy when he caught opener Srivatsava to become only the second wicket-keeper in Ranji Trophy to have taken over 200 catches. Vinayak Samanth of Mumbai with 264 catches is ahead of him.
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