Ankush Jaiswal hat-trick dents Aakash Tigers as Eagle Thane Strikers clinch a win in the T20 Mumbai’19

Batting first, Aakash Tigers Mumbai managed to post a modest total of 136/8 in 20 overs. The top order chipped in with starts with opener Gomel top scoring with 38 runs. However, the match turned upside down when spinner Ankush Jaiswal came in to rattle the entire middle order of Aakash Tigers. The 26yr old came up with the 1^st hat-trick in the history of T20 Mumbai so far which is certainly a feat he will cherish for a long long time.  Striking in the 11th and 15th over, In the last two balls of the 11^th over, Ankush came up with crucial wickets of  Arjun Tendulkar & Siddarth Akre and followed it up with a wkt in the 1^st ball of the 15^th over of Dhawal Kulkarni as Aakash Tigers were in deep trouble. Krutik Hanagawadi with 2/17 in 4 overs was also quite impressive with the ball.

Chasing 137, Eagle Thane Strikers lost their openers within the 1^st two overs as the match became evenly balanced. However, skipper Aditya Tare played the rescue act smashing back to back half century scoring a solid 57 off 45 balls (8 fours). Tare also got excellent support from Sarfaraz who rectified his past mistakes to score a more matured and a classy 57* off 49 balls (5 fours, 1 six). It was good to see Sarfaraz guiding the team to a comfortable win as he smashed the winning runs with an impressive boundary of Dhawal Kulkarni.

Eagle Thane Strikers won the match by 6 wkts while it was Ankush, Tare and Sarfaraz coming up with crucial individual performances for their team.

Speaking with Cricketgraph when asked how he felt about the hat-trick and were there any plans in mind when he entered the game, Ankush quipped “It’s a great feeling to take the 1st hat-trick of the tournament & for the new team & also my 2nd match of t20 mumbai. Yes there was a little bit of help from the wicket too. Some of them were not aware of the hat-trick but i was knowing it because i took the two wickets on the last 2 balls of the 11th over and then came back on 15th over. Yes we had a plan for every batsmen & it hopefully worked for us!