COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga became the first man to pick up two hat-tricks in World Cups when he skittled out three Kenyan tail-enders in their Group A match on Tuesday.
Malinga, who missed his side’s opening two matches with a sore back, fired back with the wickets of Tanmay Mishra (0), Peter Ongondo (0) and Shem Ngoche (0) with successive, full deliveries, the latter two clean bowled.
He finished with a career best six for 38 as the Africans were dismissed for 142.
In 2007, Malinga grabbed four in a row against South Africa.
It is the second hat-trick of the 2011 World Cup after Kemar Roach took the last three Dutch wickets in West Indies’ victory in Group B on Monday.
Kenya crumbled from a respectable 102-2 to 142 all out in 43.4 overs after choosing to bat first, with the Obuya brothers the only batsmen to reach double figures.
A 94-run partnership between Collins Obuya (52 off 100 balls) and his elder sibling David (51 off 106 balls) raised hopes that Kenya might cross the 200-run mark but Malinga turned into a one-man hit-squad.
He got rid of Collins with a toe crushing yorker in the 32nd over before returning for his final spell to flatten the Kenyans with breathtaking pace as he bagged four wickets in five legal balls.
Malinga trapped Mishra lbw with the final delivery of his seventh over and then returned to knock over the stumps of Ongondo and Ngoche with the first two balls of his next over.
Sri Lankan fans were already dancing in the stands to celebrate the achievement and when Malinga grounded Elijah Otieno’s leg stump to grab his sixth victim of the day, a deafening roar reverberated around the R Premadasa Stadium.
Malinga could only shake his head in disbelief as he looked up to the arena’s giant scoreboard which displayed a sign reading 6-38 underneath a picture of the man of the moment.
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