Unadkat dismissed Dhruv Shorey, Vaibhav Rawal, and Yash Dhull on the third, fourth, and fifth deliveries of the match, after Delhi captain Dhull had won the toss and elected to bat
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Jaydev Unadkat capped up 2022 with a remarkable Test comeback after a 12-year absence. On his comeback to the Ranji Trophy in 2023, he started with a hat-trick in his first over, as the Delhi-Saurashtra match got off to a spectacular start at Rajkot. Saurashtra captain Unadkat dismissed Dhruv Shorey, Vaibhav Rawal, and Yash Dhull on the third, fourth, and fifth deliveries of the match, after Delhi captain Dhull had won the toss and elected to bat. It was the first first-over hat-trick in Ranji Trophy history; the previous earliest hat-trick in a match was by Karnataka fast bowler Vinay Kumar, whose hat-trick against Mumbai in the 2017-18 quarter-final was spread across the first and third overs.
Unadkat got two more wickets by the end of his second over to seal his 21st five-wicket haul in first-class cricket. Unadkat’s statistics read 2-0-5-5 when he trapped Lalit Yadav lbw for a four-ball duck. Shorey’s first wicket was especially important for him. Shorey presently leads the Ranji Trophy run-getters with 579 runs in six innings at an average of 144.75 after three rounds of matches this season. The game is critical for Saurashtra in their bid to reach the knockout stages. They are now third in Group B with 12 points after three games, with one win and two draws. Mumbai and Maharashtra are currently ranked #1 and second, respectively. Unadkat is having a fantastic season as both a bowler and a leader. He was the main wicket-taker for Saurashtra during their Vijay Hazare Trophy run last month, taking 19 wickets in 10 matches at an economy of 3.33.
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