Having taken the wickets of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel and Lhuan-dre Pretorius in his maiden IPL over against Rajasthan Royals on Monday evening, Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer Praful Hinge created history, becoming the first bowler in the IPL to take three wickets in the very first over of the innings.
While there have been 32 instances of a bowler taking two wickets in the first over of the innings in IPL so far, no bowler has taken three wickets in the opening over of an innings in IPL history. Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan, who became the first Indian bowler to take a hat-trick in the opening over of a Test match, taking three wickets in the opening over against Pakistan in 2006, has hailed Hinge’s heroics.
“No one has ever done it. No one in the IPL. I have never seen anything like that. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. I talked about it. My theory is right. He went for the big one, but then the bounce, that pace and the length really troubled the batsman. And then Dhruv Jurel. In form, looks solid and is a Test cricketer. And then you get him out like that. Again, that in-dipper, which is troublesome. The pace with the bounce also. And then obviously Lhuan-dre Pretorius. I might think he has been unlucky. But first over, three wickets, this is special. Look, I know how to take three wickets in the first over, but this is something very special. In the IPL, a high-voltage game, full crowd, you play for the first time in the IPL as a youngster who has just played a second T20 game. This is unheard of,” Pathan told JioHotstar.
Aftr removing Sooryavanshi, Jurel and Pretorius, all of whom failed to open their account, in his maiden over, Hinge would remove Royals’ captain Riyan Parag in his second over of his spell and had figured of 6-4 in his first two overs of the match.
Hinge also became only the eighth bowler in IPL history to take four wickets or more inside the power play. The other bowlers to achieve this feat are Ishant Sharma, Shoiab Akhtar, Ajit Chandila, Pat Cummins, Dhawal Kulkarni, Deepak Chahar and Mohammad Shami.
Hinge’s fellow pacer and debutant Sakib Hussian took four wickets in the match and finished up with a spell of four for 24, having taken the wickets of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Donovan Ferreira, Jofra Archer and Ravi Bishnoi. Pathan hailed both the pacers’ efforts. “It’s special to come and do something different. Yes, the other guys like (Jaydev) Unadkat and Harshal Patel were also bowling the slower ones. But they did not have the high pace and the high bounce, which both Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain provided. Credit to the management of SRH as well Ishan Kishan as a leader, as captain to trust them. Because it’s not easy. In a high octane high pressure match when Rajasthan Royals have won four games all together before comimg here. And facing those high attacking batters was not easy. But trusting them, they really did well,” Pathan added.
Rajasthan Royals skipper Riyan Parag too termed the bowling performance by the pace duo as ‘beautiful’. “I have not seen them a lot domestically. Played Sakib (when playing for Assam versus Bihar) once. They bowled beautifully. The pressure they had, with the home crowd chanting their name, the way they bowled – it was beautiful.” Parag said in the post match presentation.
