Mithun, Padikkal and Rahul power Karnataka into Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final

Pacer Abhimanyu Mithun, openers Devdutt Padikkal and K L Rahul starred as defending champions Karnataka romped into the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy after thrashing Haryana by 8 wickets in the first semi-final here on Friday.

The highlight of the match was Mithun (5/39) taking five wickets in an over including a hat-trick and registering his name in the record books.

Mithun became the first bowler in the domestic circuit to claim hat-trick in all the formats.

He had snared a hat-trick in the Vijay Hazare (national ODI championship) final against Tamil Nadu earlier this year.

The Karnataka pacer did not have a good time until he bowled his last over where he prevailed over the Haryana batsman.

In the 20th over of the innings, he dismissed Himanshu Rana (61) and Rahul Tewatia (32) off the first two balls and completed his hat-trick by sending back Sumit Kumar (0).

There was more drama in store as Mithun got a wicket on the fourth ball, that of Amit Mishra (0), and then sent back Jayant Yadav (0) on the final ball of the over.

Asked to bat first, Haryana piled up 194/8 on the board but Karntaka chased it in 15 overs, thanks to blazing half centuries by openers Devdutt Padikkal (87) and K L Rahul (66), who took the opposition attack to the cleaners.

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