47-year-old Pravin Tambe dismisses Gayle, Morgan, Pollard, Allen and Tharanga for zero in T10 league

Pravin Tambe hat-trick in T10 League: Playing his first match in 19 months, the 47-year-old Tambe accounted for Chris Gayle, Eoin Morgan and Kieron Pollard – all for zero – in the first over of the match between Kerala Knights and Sindhis.

Remember Praveen Tambe? Yes, the above-40 leg-spinner who shot into limelight after making some of the best international batsmen dance to his leg spin a few seasons ago in the IPL. He is back, and guess what, he claimed a hat-trick on his return to cricket in the inaugural edition of the T10 League at Sharjah.

Playing his first match in 19 months, the 47-year-old Tambe accounted for Chris Gayle, Eoin Morgan and Kieron Pollard – all for zero – in the first over of the match between Kerala Knights and Sindhis.

The Sindhis leggie was fortunate to get both Gayle and Morgan with low full tosses but soon found his rhythm and cleaned up Pollard with a flipper in the final ball of his first over.  He did not stop there, he bowled to Yorkers that would make even Lasith Malinga proud, to remove Fabien Allen and Upul Tharanga – both regulars for West Indies and Sri Lanka – in his second and final over.

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— Mr Gentleman (@183_264) November 22, 2018

His figures, in the end, were 2 overs 15 runs and 5 wickets. Tambe on Thursday also became the first cricketer to take a five-for in a T10 match Who says shorter formats are only meant for batsmen? This was not the first time Tambe had taken a hat-trick. He had turned a match on its in 2014 IPL with his hat-trick. He had Manish Pandey stumped off a wide delivery, and then followed it up with the wickets of Yusuf Pathan and Ryan Ten Doeschate. The wickets came at a time when KKR needed 49 runs from last five overs but lost the match.

After a productive season with the Rajasthan Royals Tambe even made it to the Mumbai side and played the Vijay Hazare Trophy - domestic T20s - before he was dropped last year. His last List A game was against Goa in 2017.

Coming back to the T10 League, Tambe’s trickeries helped Sindhis restrict Knights to a 103 for 7 in 10 overs even that looked a farsighted thought when they reduced to 21 for 6 but Wayne Parnell’s 24-ball 59 took them to a respectable total.

In reply, the opening pair of Sindhis – Shane Watson and Anton Devcich – tore apart the Knights bowlers. They put 80 runs in five overs to give their side a flying start. Watson remained unbeaten on 50 off 24 balls and Devcich scored 49 off 20 balls. Sindhis reached home in 7.4 overs with 9 wickets in hand.