In the sport of cricket, a hat-trick is an occasion where a bowler takes three wickets in consecutive deliveries. As of 5 August 2016, this rare feat has been achieved 42 times in over two thousand Test matches, the form of the sport in which national representative teams compete in matches of up to five days' duration. The first Test hat-trick was recorded on 2 January 1879, in only the third Test match to take place, by the Australian pace bowler Fred Spofforth, nicknamed "The Demon Bowler", who dismissed three English batsmen with consecutive deliveries at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The most recent bowler to achieve the feat was Sri Lankan spin bowler Rangana Herath against Australia on 5 August 2016. At least one bowler from each of the ten nations that play Test cricket has taken a Test hat-trick
A player has taken two hat-tricks in the same
Test match only once. Playing for Australia against South Africa in
the first match of the 1912 Triangular Tournament at Old
Trafford, Manchester, England, leg spinner Jimmy
Matthews took a hat-trick in South Africa's first and second innings, both
taken on 28 May 1912. He completed both hat-tricks by dismissing South
Africa's Tommy Ward.Only three other cricketers have taken more than one
Test hat-trick:
Australian off spinner Hugh Trumble (two years
apart, between the same teams at the same ground), Pakistani fast
bowler Wasim Akram (just over a week apart, in consecutive matches
between the same teams) and Englishfast bowler Stuart Broad. Three
players have taken a hat-trick on their Test debut: English medium pace
bowler Maurice Allom in 1930, New Zealand off-spinner Peter
Petherick in 1976, and Australian pace bowler Damien Fleming in
1994.Geoff Griffin took the fewest total Test wickets of any player who
recorded a hat-trick, taking only eight wickets in his entire Test career.
During the match in which he took his
hat-trick, Griffin was repeatedly called for throwing by the umpires
and never bowled again in a Test match.Australian Peter Siddle is the
only bowler to take a hat-trick on his birthday, and Bangladeshi off
spinner Sohag Gazi is the only player to score a century and take a
hat-trick in the same Test match.
Australian Merv Hughes is the only
bowler to take a hatrick where the wickets fell over three overs. He took a
wicket with the final ball of an over. With the first ball of the next over he
took the final wicket of the West Indies innings. He then removed the
opener Gordon Greenidge with the first ball of the West Indies second
innings.
In the five-match series between a Rest
of the World XI and England in 1970, a hat-trick was taken by South
African Eddie Barlow in the fourth match,
at Headingley (the last three of four wickets in five balls).These
matches were considered to be Tests at the time, but that status was later
removed.
| No. | Bowler | For | Against | Inn. | Test | Dismissals | Venue | Date | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fred Spofforth |  Australia |  England | 1 | 1/1 |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne | 2 January 1879 | |
| 2 | Billy Bates | England | Australia | 1 | 2/3 |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne | 20 January 1883 | |
| 3 | Johnny Briggs | England | Australia | 2 | 2/3 |
| Sydney Cricket Ground,Sydney | 2 February 1892 | |
| 4 | George Lohmann | England |  South Africa | 2 | 1/3 |
| St. George's Park, Port Elizabeth | 14 February 1896 | |
| 5 | Jack Hearne | England | Australia | 2 | 3/5 |
| Headingley, Leeds | 30 June 1899 | |
| 6 | Hugh Trumble | Australia | England | 2 | 2/5 |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne | 4 January 1902 | |
| 7 | Hugh Trumble | Australia | England | 2 | 5/5 |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne | 8 March 1904 | |
| 8 | Jimmy Matthews | Australia | South Africa | 1 | 1/3 |
| Old Trafford,Manchester | 28 May 1912 | |
| 9 | Jimmy Matthews | Australia | South Africa | 2 | 1/3 |
| Old Trafford,Manchester | 28 May 1912 | |
| 10 | Maurice Allom | England |  New Zealand | 1 | 1/4 |
| Lancaster Park,Christchurch | 10 January 1930 | |
| 11 | Tom Goddard | England | South Africa | 1 | 1/5 |
| Old Wanderers,Johannesburg | 26 December 1938 | |
| 12 | Peter Loader | England |  West Indies | 1 | 4/5 |
| Headingley, Leeds | 25 July 1957 | |
| 13 | Lindsay Kline | Australia | South Africa | 2 | 2/5 |
| Newlands, Cape Town | 3 January 1958 | |
| 14 | Wes Hall | West Indies |  Pakistan | 1 | 3/3 |
| Bagh-e-Jinnah, Lahore | 29 March 1959 | |
| 15 | Geoff Griffin | South Africa | England | 1 | 2/5 |
| Lord's, London | 24 June 1960 | |
| 16 | Lance Gibbs | West Indies | Australia | 1 | 4/5 |
| Adelaide Oval, Adelaide | 30 January 1961 | |
| 17 | Peter Petherick | New Zealand | Pakistan | 1 | 1/3 |
| Gaddafi Stadium,Lahore | 9 October 1976 | |
| 18 | Courtney Walsh | West Indies | Australia | 1 & 2 | 1/5 |
| Brisbane Cricket Ground, Brisbane | 18–20 November 1988 | |
| 19 | Merv Hughes | Australia | West Indies | 1 & 2 | 2/5 |
| WACA, Perth | 3–4 December 1988 | |
| 20 | Damien Fleming | Australia | Pakistan | 2 | 2/3 |
| Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, Rawalpindi | 9 October 1994 | |
| 21 | Shane Warne | Australia | England | 2 | 2/5 |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne | 29 December 1994 | |
| 22 | Dominic Cork | England | West Indies | 2 | 4/6 |
| Old Trafford,Manchester | 30 July 1995 | |
| 23 | Darren Gough | England | Australia | 1 | 5/5 |
| Sydney Cricket Ground,Sydney | 2 January 1999 | |
| 24 | Wasim Akram | Pakistan |  Sri Lanka | 1 | 3/4 |
| Gaddafi Stadium,Lahore | 6 March 1999 | |
| 25 | Wasim Akram | Pakistan | Sri Lanka | 2 | 4/4 |
| Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka | 14 March 1999 | |
| 26 | Nuwan Zoysa | Sri Lanka |  Zimbabwe | 1 | 2/3 |
| Harare Sports Club,Harare | 26 November 1999 | |
| 27 | Abdul Razzaq | Pakistan | Sri Lanka | 1 | 2/3 |
| Galle International Stadium, Galle | 21 June 2000 | |
| 28 | Glenn McGrath | Australia | West Indies | 1 | 2/5 |
| WACA, Perth | 1 December 2000 | |
| 29 | Harbhajan Singh |  India | Australia | 1 | 2/3 |
| Eden Gardens, Calcutta | 11 March 2001 | |
| 30 | Mohammad Sami | Pakistan | Sri Lanka | 1 | 3/3 |
| Gaddafi Stadium,Lahore | 8 March 2002 | |
| 31 | Jermaine Lawson | West Indies | Australia | 1 & 2 | 3/4 |
| Kensington Oval,Bridgetown | 2–5 May 2003 | |
| 32 | Alok Kapali |  Bangladesh | Pakistan | 1 | 2/3 |
| Arbab Niaz Stadium,Peshawar | 29 August 2003 | |
| 33 | Andy Blignaut | Zimbabwe | Bangladesh | 2 | 1/2 |
| Harare Sports Club,Harare | 22 February 2004 | |
| 34 | Matthew Hoggard | England | West Indies | 2 | 3/4 |
| Kensington Oval,Barbados | 3 April 2004 | |
| 35 | James Franklin | New Zealand | Bangladesh | 1 | 1/2 |
| Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka | 20 October 2004 | |
| 36 | Irfan Pathan | India | Pakistan | 1 | 3/3 |
| National Stadium, Karachi | 29 January 2006 | |
| 37 | Ryan Sidebottom | England | New Zealand | 2 | 1 /3 |
| Seddon Park, Hamilton | 8 March 2008 | |
| 38 | Peter Siddle | Australia | England | 1 | 1/5 |
| Brisbane Cricket Ground, Brisbane | 25 November 2010 | |
| 39 | Stuart Broad | England | India | 1 | 2/4 |
| Trent Bridge,Nottinghamshire | 30 July 2011 | |
| 40 | Sohag Gazi | Bangladesh | New Zealand | 2 | 1/2 |
| Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium,Chittagong | 13 October 2013 | |
| 41 | Stuart Broad | England | Sri Lanka | 1 | 2/2 |
| Headingley, Leeds | 20 June 2014 | |
| 42 | Rangana Herath | Sri Lanka | Australia | 1 | 2/3 |
| Galle International Stadium, Galle | 5 August 2016 |
England and Australia combined have taken over half of all Test match hat-tricks to date, 24 of 42 (58.53%)
| Team | Hat-tricks |
|---|---|
| England | 13 |
| Australia | 11 |
| Pakistan | 4 |
| West Indies | 4 |
| Bangladesh | 2 |
| India | 2 |
| Sri Lanka | 2 |
| New Zealand | 2 |
| South Africa | 1 |
| Zimbabwe | 1 |
Below
are some of the hat-trick trivia:
Harbhajan
Singh, Darren Gough, Broad and Nuwan Zoysa are the only players to have taken a
hat-trick in Tests and have been victims of a bowler’s hat-trick too.
Most
number of hat-tricks in Tests have been taken by England (13) and the most
number of hat-tricks taken against a team also is by England (8).
Damien
Fleming, Peter Petherick and Maurice Allom took a hat-trick on their Test debut.
The
most number of hat-tricks taken in a year is 1999 (4) followed by 2004 (3).
Pakistan
have taken four hat-tricks and all of them have come against Sri Lanka.
The
longest hat-trick is by Merv Hughes spread across two innings against the West
Indies at WACA in 1988-89. His hat-trick was spread over three overs.
Irfan
Pathan has taken a hat-trick in the first over of a Test and Zoysa took a
hat-trick during the first three balls of the Test.
Courtney
Walsh was the first to take hat-trick in split innings at Gabba, Brisbane
against Australia in 1988-89, a feat achieved by Hughes of Australia in the
very next Test of the series at WACA. Till date, such a feat has been repeated
only by Geoff Lawson of Australia.
Tommy
Ward was involved in both hat-tricks of Jimmy Matthews and on the
same day. So, Matthews is also the only bowler to have taken a hat-trick in the
same Test and on the same day, and that came against South Africa in 1912.
Mohammad
Sami and Wasim Akram are the only ones to have a Test and a One-Day
International (ODI) hat-trick. Akram is the only one to have achieved
hat-tricks twice in both formats.
Hugh
Trumble and Patherick’s hat-tricks involved catches in all three dismissals
with one of them being caught & bowled. The next one to have done that is
Broad in the ongoing Test match against Sri Lanka at Headingley.
Matthews’
hat-trick against South Africa in 1912 in the first innings didn’t involve the
fielder, as it included one bowled and two lbws. This was next achieved by
Dominic Cork with one bowled and two lbws in the second innings
against the West Indies at Lord’s in 1995. Others in this list include; Lawson
and Sami.
Sohag
Gazi is the only bowler to take a hat-trick and score a century in the same
Test.
