Jhumia Khatun and her unnoticed hat-trick

It's been three days since Bengal faced an early exit from the Senior Women's T20 Trophy 2022. Bengal had a terrible tournament as one of the favourites to clinch the trophy. But, in the last match of the tournament, there was something special that happened against Punjab. Bengal won the match by 43 runs. In addition, Jhumia Khatun took a sensational hat-trick against the onslaught of Punjab batters. After returning home, Jhumia shared her story in an exclusive interview with Sportz Point.

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Jhumia comes from a village that is 12kms away from Bethuadahari rail station. Meanwhile, Bethuadahari is 3 hours train journey away from Kolkata, where she has to travel every time to make her dream come true of playing for India.

The all-rounder did not have many opportunities to bowl in the match prior to the Punjab match. She had bowled only one over in the Haryana match and was taken for 9 runs in the same. Post that, she was called back to bowl again in that match.

"I had bowled only 1 over prior to this match. So, I wanted to make sure that I do not leak runs. I knew if I bowl an economical over, I would get more overs to bowl. That was my early plan," Jhumia said.

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In the 11th over, Jhumia Khatun first got Priyanka Malik caught in the long-on region on the fourth ball of the over. Priyanka then was batting on 27 off 15. In the next ball she got out another set batter; Pragati Singh. Pragati tried to do the same thing as Priyanka and failed too. On the last ball of the over, Jhumia was on target and clean bowled new batter Neelam Bisht to claim her first hat-trick of List A career.

"Actually they were trying to hit every ball for six or four. They had got a great start and I only had to be accurate enough not to leak runs. First two wickets were lofted shots towards long on that Deepti Sharma caught and the last one was bowled," she demonstrated her hat-trick.

"Yes, I am happy to take the first-hattrick of my career. But, it would have been great if we had qualified for the knock-outs. We did not qualify for the first time in many years.," Jhumia Khatun added further.

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According to her, the Mumbai match was the turning point of the tournament. "If we could have won the Mumbai match, the results would have been different for us. We as batters failed that day. Yes, it happens to every team. We now want to focus on next season," Jhumia said.

"We had a very strong team on paper. Everyone in the squad can bowl and bat at any time or situation in any match. It's just somehow we did not do better than our opponents. We played well but that was not good enough for us. We will be back stronger in the next season for sure," the all-rounder added.