All-rounder Andrew Tye bagged the second hat-trick of the day in his IPL debut as the Gujarat Lions beat defending champions Rising Pune Supergiant by 7 wickets at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot on Friday.
Chasing a challenging 172-run target, Brendon McCullum (49 off 32) and Dwayne Smith (47 off 30) got Gujarat Lions off to a flier with a blazing 94-run opening stand to set the base for the convincing victory.
Skipper Suresh Raina (35 not out) and Aaron Finch (33 not out) then guided Gujarat to their first IPL 10 win with an unbeaten 61-run fourth wicket stand with two overs to spare.
Tye bagged five wickets (5/17), the first in this edition of the IPL, including a hat-trick in the final over of Pune's innings, which yielded only four runs as the visitors lost the settled duo of Manoj Tiwary (31), Ankit Sharma (25) and then Shardul Thakur (0) off consecutive deliveries.
Put in to bat, Pune's opening woes continued to haunt them with the loss of the in-form Ajinkya Rahane (0) in the very first over.
Rahane's dismissal brought in the skipper Steve Smith (43), who along with opener Rahul Tripathi (33) launched an onslaught.
Praveen Kumar was milked for 25 runs, with Tripathi dispatching him for two consecutive sixes and a four before Smith fetched two back to back boundaries as Pune rushed to their fastest IPL 50.
As Pune looked set for a massive total, Tye provided the hosts with the crucial breakthrough in the form of Tripathi with a slower delivery which the batsman failed to lift and was caught by Aaron Finch at mid-off.
Tripathi's 17-ball effort was laced with three hits to the fence and two over it but more importantly set the tone with a 64-run second wicket stand with the Australian captain.
Englishman Ben Stokes then joined Smith to add 25 runs before the strategic time out after the 9th over once again turned out to be of great advantage for the fielding side.
Returning from the break, Steve Smith was dismissed by West Indian all-rounder Dwayne Smith for 43 runs off 28 balls.
Two overs later, Stokes departed to another slower delivery from Tie which knocked off his off-stump, after the IPL 2017's costliest buy faced 18 balls, hitting two boundaries and a six.
All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, playing his first match of the season, immediately provided another breakthrough with the wicket of former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (5), whose form continued to desert him for the fourth consecutive match.
Bengal batsman Tiwary, who got a life on 18 when Jadeja missed one off his own ball, provided some resistance with Sharma.
Sharma, who dispatched Praveen Kumar for a six over midwicket in the penultimate over, fell on the first ball the final over before Tiwary departed next ball to Tie. The right-left duo added 47 runs for the sixth wicket.
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