5 notable hat-tricks in 2019
The game of cricket, in recent times, has transformed quite a lot and favoured the batsmen. With T20 cricket grabbing eyeballs, the dynamics of the game have slowly shifted to handing the batsmen an advantage, while the bowlers have had to bear the brunt of being carted to all parts of the ground.
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Given this visible domination, bowlers picking up a handful of wickets and in particular a hat-trick is a rare phenomenon. The year 2019 bore witness to a total of 10 hat-tricks across the three formats.
Jasprit Bumrah picked up the lone hat-trick in the Test format, while Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav were two of the three bowlers who picked up a hat-trick each in ODI cricket. The pace of the T20 format saw six different bowlers picking up hat-tricks, including Deepak Chahar's effort against Bangladesh.
On that note, here is a look at five notable hat-tricks in 2019.
#5 Jasprit Bumrah (6/27 v West Indies, September 2019)
Indian pace sensation Jasprit Bumrah was the lone bowler to claim a hat-trick in Test cricket in 2019. He achieved this feat against West Indies at Sabina Park, also becoming only the third Indian bowler after Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan to pick a Test cricket hat-trick.
In September last year, on the second day of the second Test match, Bumrah dismissed Darren Bravo, Shamrah Brooks and Roston Chase to claim the hat-trick. While Bravo was caught by K.L. Rahul, the remaining two batsmen were dismissed leg before wicket to bring about the big moment.
Riding on Bumrah's hat-trick, India dismissed West Indies for a paltry score of 117 in response to India's first innings score of 416. India went on to win the Test comfortably by a margin of 257 runs and eventually claimed a 2-0 series win.
Bumrah's hat-trick was only the 44th hat-trick in the history of Test cricket and the first since August 2017.