Shane Watson picks up a hat-trick against Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 7

Shane Watson picked the 2nd hat-trick of IPL 2014 against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Motera, Ahmedabad

Rajasthan Royals skipper Shane Watson today picked his first IPL hat-trick – 2nd of IPL 2014 – against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Ahmedabad.

Watson dismissed his counterpart Shikhar Dhawan on the last ball of innings’ 4th over. He returned to bowl the 17th over and picked two wickets in two balls to complete the 2nd hat-trick of this season, accounting for the wickets of Moises Henriques and Karn Sharma.

This is the 2nd hat-trick in 2 games for Rajasthan Royals, both at Motera, with Pravin Tambe achieving the feat in last match against KKR in just 2 balls.

Rajasthan Royals have now become the first team to record 3 hat-tricks in IPL, including Ajit Chandila’s hat-trick in IPL 2012. Also, Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad is the first IPL venue to have witnessed two IPL hat-tricks.

Watson bowled brilliantly in last match against KKR too, returning with figures of 3/21 in his 4 overs. He dismissed both the dangerous openers – Gautam Gambhir (54) and Robin Uthappa (65) – who were threatening to take the game away from RR. Watson’s 3-wicket over brought RR back into the game, following which Tambe’s magic completely derailed KKR’s chase.

Even today, when Shikhar Dhawan was going full throttle, hitting the ball sweetly, Watson provided the crucial breakthrough after which medium pacer Rajat Bhatia (3/23) ran through the middle order, never letting SRH gain any sort of momentum.

Watson ended up with bowling figures of 2-0-13-3. Sunrisers managed to put 134/9 after 20 overs.