Vijay Hazare Trophy 2018-19: Shivam Mavi shines with a hat-trick against Saurashtra

Over the last 4-5 years, a lot of cricketers who graduated from the “Rahul Dravid School of Cricket” have made their mark on the fraternity already. Some scintillating youngsters like Prithvi Shaw, Ishan Kishan, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill and others have bagged huge IPL contracts and knocking the National side doors hard.

In the process of earning the selectors’ attention, Shivam Mavi has done his chances a world of good with a stellar spell against Saurashtra in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Uttar Pradesh and Saurashtra locked horns at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi and Jaydev Shah’s Saurashtra were batting first.

Their side did manage to post a big total, but Shivam Mavi stole the show with a hat-trick coming in the final over the innings. He sent Chirag Jani, Arpit Vasavada, and Jaydev Unadkat off three consecutive deliveries of the over and finished with the impressive figures of 5 for 73 in his 10 overs as Saurashtra piled up 303 for 9.

Mavi’s effort goes in vain

Despite putting in such a brilliant performance, Shivam Mavi failed to finish on the winning side. Uttar Pradesh could manage only 278 runs in their run chase and got bowled out with five balls remaining, handing Saurashtra a 25-run win. Akshdeep Nath’s 53-ball 62 was the only notable effort coming from Suresh Raina’s side.

Incidentally, this was Shivam Mavi’s second List A match after having made an appearance in the India A – South Africa A encounter in Bangalore. He joined a very elite list of bowlers to have picked up a hat-trick in Vijay Hazare Trophy and overall, he’s the 20th bowler to have achieved the feat on Indian soil.

Mavi became the eighth bowler to take a hat-trick in the history of Vijay Hazare Trophy (this excludes the four hat-tricks in Ranji Trophy One-Day, as India’s inter-state 50-over tournament was previously known as). Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Mavi’s new-ball partner in the U19 World Cup features on this list as well having done the same in the 2016/17 season against Gujarat.