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| UAE’s Karthik Palaniapan Meiyappan celebrates his hat-trick during the ICC men’s Twenty20 World Cup 2022 cricket match between Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates at Kardinia Park in Geelong on 18 October– AFP
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GEELONG, AFP: Karthik Meiyappan of the United Arab Emirates took the first hat-trick of the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia on Tuesday and only the fifth ever in the history of the tournament.
Asian champions Sri Lanka were motoring at 117-2 in the first-round clash at Geelong when the leg-break bowler struck in the 15th over, removing Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Charith Asalanka and skipper Dasun Shanaka in successive balls.
Rajapaksa was caught in the deep, Asalanka caught behind and Shanaka clean-bowled.
“It’s a great feeling and it really hasn’t sunk in yet,” said the 22-year-old Meiyappan, who ended with figures of 3-19 off his four overs as Sri Lanka made 152-8.
“I was trying to take the ball away from the leftie (Rajapaksa), I was lucky that he sliced it to deep cover. Asalanka, it was easy for me to bowl a wrong’un, and he nicked it.
“But Shanaka that was a special ball, to get it through bat and pad. That was the biggest one.” Meiyappan became just the fifth bowler to snare a hat-trick at a T20 World Cup after Australia’s Brett Lee (2007), Irishman Curtis Campher, Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga and South Africa’s Kagiso Rabada, who all achieved the feat in 2021.
