Watch: Lasith Malinga rips through the Perth Scorchers side

The calendar read 12.12.12. Melbourne Superstars and Perth Scorchers were playing each other. Stars captain Shane Warne had no hesitation in bowling first on a lively wicket. However, the Scorchers had no idea what Lasith Malinga had in store for them. The Perth Scorchers batsmen felt very unlucky and helpless on a day which was being superstitiously called as the ‘luckiest day of the year’.

Malinga bowled an almost unplayable spell of four overs on the lively WACA pitch as he demolished the Scorchers line-up, taking record figures of 6 for 7, to bowl them out for a mere 69 runs.

It all began after Malinga knocked Marcus North’s off stump out of the ground. The second victim was debutant Marcus Stoinis. He closed the face of the bat on a ball that was rising on his body and got a leading edge which landed into the hands of the fielder at gully.

Malinga was held back in the middle overs. But, Warne called upon, his trump card the following over to finish off the tumbling Scorchers’ innings which also suffered blows from James Faulkner and the captain himself. Another debutant Hilton Cartwright scooped a catch to midwicket after he was foxed by a perfectly disguised slower ball. Malinga then trapped Nathan Coulter-Nile plumb in front of the wicket with another superb slower ball.

The fifth wicket was of Tom Triffitt who fell in a similar way to Coulter-Nile. He also failed to read the slower full toss from Malinga and he had him LBW. Joe Mennie became the sixth victim for the Sri Lankan fast bowler with another slower ball that hit the base of the off stump.

Malinga took the second-best figures of all time in domestic T20. If Malinga had not delivered two wide balls, he could have claimed the record from Somerset’s Arul Suppiah.

Watch: Lasith Malinga rips through the Perth Scorchers side:

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