5 hat-tricks which did nothing to help the team’s cause
Hat-tricks are hard to come by and are very uncommon in cricket. Apart from hitting immaculate line & lengths, luck also needs to favour the bowler in order for them to accomplish the feat. Most times, a hat-trick creates enough impact to break the backbone of the opposition’s batting lineup.
If a bowler scampers his way to a hat-trick, he is most likely to end up on the winning side. However, there have been instances when the bowler’s feat couldn’t fetch a victory for his team, which is pretty unfortunate from the bowler’s perspective.
As we move ahead, we take you through five instances when the stupendous accomplishment of bowlers, unfortunately, couldn’t quite guide their teams to glory.
#1 Irfan Pathan versus Pakistan - 2006
Pakistan team got a taste of Irfan Pathan’s vicious swing-bowling when India toured the nation for a 3-match Test series. In the first over of the third Test in Karachi, the Baroda-born pacer left Pakistan in shambles after picking up three of their big guns in successive balls.
Salman Butt, skipper Younis Khan and Mohammed Yousuf were bamboozled by Pathan as they all were left clueless against the left-arm bowler's spectacular spell of bowling. Butt poked tentatively at an away-going delivery and the ball found the edge of his bat.
Pathan followed it up with an in-swinging delivery that trapped Younis in front of the stumps. His hat-trick ball was an absolute peach as it snuck through the bat & bat of Yousuf and cannoned into the stumps. However, the hosts clawed their way back into the game on the back of some stern resistance from their batsmen.
Their pace-battery, involving the likes of Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammed Asif and Abdul Razzaq also picked up wickets at regular intervals to restrict India on both innings. India, eventually, were comprehensively defeated by their arch-rivals by 341 runs, but Irfan made a name for himself after the game.