Mithun takes 5 wickets in an over, K'taka beat Haryana to

Pacer Abhimanyu Mithun, openers Devdutt Padikkal and K L Rahul starred as defending champions Karnataka romped into the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy after thrashing Haryana by 8 wickets in the first semi-final here on Friday.

The highlight of the match was Mithun (5/39) taking five wickets in an over including a hat-trick and registering his name in the record books.

Mithun became the first bowler in the domestic circuit to claim hat-trick in all the formats.

He had snared a hat-trick in the Vijay Hazare (national ODI championship) final against Tamil Nadu earlier this year.

The Karnataka pacer did not have a good time until he bowled his last over where he prevailed over the Haryana batsman.

In the 20th over of the innings, he dismissed Himanshu Rana (61) and Rahul Tewatia (32) off the first two balls and completed his hat-trick by sending back Sumit Kumar (0).

There was more drama in store as Mithun got a wicket on the fourth ball, that of Amit Mishra (0), and then sent back Jayant Yadav (0) on the final ball of the over.

Asked to bat first, Haryana piled up 194/8 on the board but Karntaka chased it in 15 overs, thanks to blazing half centuries by openers Devdutt Padikkal (87) and K L Rahul (66), who took the opposition attack to the cleaners.

For Haryana, opener Chaityan Bishnoi (55 off 35 balls; 7x4, 1x6) and Rana (61 off 34 balls; 6x4, 2x6) shone with the bat, while Harshal Patel (34 off 20 balls; 6x4, 1x6) and Tewatia (32 off 20 balls; 6x4) also played their parts to perfection.

Haryana were going all guns blazing at 192-4 when Mithun, a right-arm pacer, wrecked havoc.

The stiff chase was a walk in park as Paddikal and Rahul conjured a 125-run stand for the first wicket in just 9.3 overs to lay the foundation stone of the win.

Rahul hammered four boundaries and six towering sixes, while Paddikal's innings had 11 fours and four sixes, their all-round hitting taking the game away from Haryana.

Rahul's departure did not deter Paddikal from playing his shots as he found an able ally in Mayank Agarwal (30 not out in 14 balls; 3x6) as they took Karnataka home.

Paddikal missed what would have been a great century by 13 runs and fell when his side needed just 13 runs. Then Agarwal and skipper Manish Pandey (3 not out) completed the procedings.

Karnataka will face the winner of the second semi final, currently underway between Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.

Brief Scores: Haryana 194/8 (Himanshu Rana 61, Chaitanya Bishnoi 55; Abhimayu Mithun 5-39) lost to Karnataka 195/2 (Devdutt Padikkal 87, K L Rahul 66; Harshal Patel 1-28).