Worcestershire allrounder joins elite group of record-holders
Worcestershire’s Joe Leach yesterday completed the astonishing feat of taking a hat-trick from the first three balls of the match, in the Royal London One-Day Cup fixture against Northamptonshire at New Road.
Jack Shantry reduced the shell-shocked East Midlanders to 19 for 6 in a game Northants somehow still went on to win, but Leach’s exploits will long be remembered as the first time three wickets have been taken from the first three balls of a game in England.
Twenty-four-year-old allrounder Leach, a graduate of the Worcestershire academy, had South African international Richard Levi caught behind by wicketkeeper Ben Cox first up. He then accounted for Rob Keogh in similar fashion, before Shantry caught Ben Duckett in the gully to reduce the visitors to 0 for 3 off three deliveries. By the time Leach had completed his first over, Northants No.7 Steven Crook was already padded up.
Here are 12 other remarkable tails of unique hat-tricks…
Sri Lanka’s greatest fast-bowler, Chaminda Vaas, holds the record for being the first player to register a hat-trick off the first three deliveries of an one-day international. Vaas pocketed the wickets of Hannan Sarker, Mohammad Ashraful and Ehsanul Haque against Bangladesh in a World Cup group stage fixture in Pietermaritzburg in 2003. Just five days later, Vaas (3 for 15) helped dismiss Canada for just 36 as Sri Lanka registered the second-greatest winning margin of all time.
India’s Irfan Pathan also picked up a hat-trick in the very first over of an international match, taking the celebrated wickets of Salman Butt, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf with his fourth, fifth and sixth balls of the third Test against Pakistan at Karachi, in 2006. Perhaps the best triple of all time?
Sri Lankan left-arm seamer Nuwan Zoysa is the only bowler to achieve the distinction of a hat-trick in his first three balls in a Test, albeit not through the first over of the match. Zoysa took care of Murray Goodwin, Neil Johnson and Trevor Gripper of Zimbabwe at Harare in 1999/2000.
In 1907, Middlesex’s Albert Trott took four wickets in four balls and a hat-trick in the same innings against Somerset in his benefit match. Despite a five-match Test career for both Australia and his adopted England, the early end to the match meant that it did not raise as much money for him as he’d have liked. Seven years later after a lengthy battle with financial problems, Trott - the son of an accountant - committed suicide at the age of 41. Ex-England batsman Jonathan Trott is said to be distant relative of the Australia-born former Wisden Cricketer of the Year.
Indian medium-fast bowler Joginder Rao also achieved two hat-tricks in the same innings during only his second match for Services, in the 1963-64 Ranji Trophy. Amazingly, Rao also took a hat-trick on his debut match just a week previously, giving him three hat-tricks in the first two games of his career. Sadly, his promising career was ended prematurely after just five games when he was injured in a parachuting accident while serving in the Indian army. He later represented India in golf, but still went on to reach the rank of Major General. What a man.
Although a haul of five wickets in five balls has never been achieved in first-class cricket, New Zealand’s Neil Wagner picked up five wickets in six balls for Otago against Wellington in 2010/11. Although this has been matched on four other occasions, Wagner’s quintet was taken in a single over, for the first and only time in history.
Seventeen players have achieved the record of taking a hat-trick on their first-class debuts. Perhaps most notable is ex-India Test bowler Javagal Srinath who took three wickets in successive balls for Karnataka against Hyderabad in 1988/89. Just weeks later, Saradindu Mukherjee achieved the same debut feat for Bengal on the same ground, although his international career was not so impressive and he retired in 1995 after just three ODI appearances for India. Srinath on the other hand, played 229 ODIs and made 67 Test appearances.
Ralph 'Ricey' Phillips was a South African serviceman who took a hat-trick in his first over in first-class cricket for Border versus Eastern Province at Port Elizabeth 1939/40, in the final fixture before World War II. Phillips was a top-order batsman who had no previous bowling experience, but went on to take 21 further wickets in 32 matches. During the war he was captured as a prisoner of war, but escaped in transit and made his way to England where he played some war-time cricket for a South Africa XI.
Gloucestershire's wicketkeeper William Brain took a hat-trick of stumpings against Somerset at Cheltenham in the summer of 1893. All three wickets came off the leg-spin of Charles Townsend, who went on to play two Ashes Tests for England six years later.
On the 1988/89 tour of Australia, Courtney Walsh became the first man to spread a Test match hat-trick over two innings. In the first Test at Brisbane, his triple, the eighteenth on record at the highest-level, was followed up by a further complicated version. Australia’s own fast-bowling trailblazer, Merv Hughes, spread three consecutive wickets over two innings and three overs in the very next Test at Perth. Big Merv wasn’t even aware of his feat until it was explained to him later.
Just two weeks ago, Durham’s pace-attack spearhead, Chris Rushworth, mirrored Hughes to pick up a hat-trick over two innings and three overs, the first in county cricket. He accounted for Hampshire’s James Tomlinson with the final ball his 21st over and then ended the innings by bowling Gareth Berg with his next delivery. Michael Carberry then nicked off to ball one of the Hampshire reply to place Rushworth in fast-bowling folklore.
Kent and England bowler Doug Wright is the definitive grandfather of the hat-trick, taking seven over the course of his career, an individual record. Considered England’s leading leg-spinner of the pre-World War II era, Wright’s 21 hat-trick scalps came from the 101,095 balls he delivered over his 25-year playing career. Monkeys and typewriters come to mind...!
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