Pravin Tambe Claims First Hat-Trick of Indian Premier League 2014

Rajasthan Royals' spinner Pravin Tambe claimed the first hat-trick of Indian Premier League 2014 in Ahmedabad on Monday. The 42-year-old bowler put brakes on an otherwise aggressive Kolkata Knight Riders' innings when he removed Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan and Ryan ten Doeschate to leave the opposition reeling.

Set 171 to win, Kolkata got off to a solid start with openers Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa putting on 121 runs for the opening wicket. Once the two departed though, Tambe saw a window of opportunity and pushed himself through to seize the advantage for his side.

The 16th over of the match gave Rajasthan players and fans three reasons to erupt into frenzied celebrations. A charging Pandey was stumped, veteran Yusuf Pathan was caught and bowled and Dutchman ten Doeschate was LBW as Rajasthan players converged on Tambe to celebrate. Kolkata lost six wickets for two runs!

There were enough reasons to celebrate as Tambe became only the seventh ever to complete a hat-trick in the Indian Premier League. He now joins fellow Indians Laxmipathy Balaji, Yuvraj Singh (twice), Rohit Sharma, Amit Mishra (thrice), Ajit Chandila and Praveen Kumar in the list of bowlers to have claimed hat-tricks in IPL. Makhaya Ntini and Sunil Narine are the others on the list.