Kuldeep Yadav became the first Indian bowler to claim two international hat-tricks, after picking up his second ODI hat-trick on Wednesday, December 18, against West Indies.
The left-arm wrist-spinner picked up the wickets of Shai Hope, Jason Holder and Alzarri Joseph off successive deliveries, throwing the West Indies chase completely off the rails in his ninth over. The three wickets reduced West Indies from 210-5 to 210-8 in the second ODI. The 25-year-old finished with figures of 10-0-52-3, ending the day with 99 ODI wickets.
His first hat-trick at the international level came against Australia in September 2017, when he claimed the wickets of Matthew Wade, Ashton Agar and Pat Cummins in an ODI in Kolkata. With that, he had become the third Indian, after Kapil Dev and Chetan Sharma, to get an ODI hat-trick.
1+2=3
Hat-trick for Kuldeep Yadav!#INDvWI pic.twitter.com/jLK9wkXl0q
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) December 18, 2019
Incidentally, Kuldeep has taken a hat-trick at the India U-19 level too; during the 2014 U19 World Cup, he took three wickets against Scotland, capturing Nick Farrar, Kyle Stirling and Alex Baum off three consecutive deliveries.
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It was also India’s fourth hat-trick this year in international cricket, and the second after Mohammad Shami’s spell against Afghanistan in the 2019 World Cup. Jasprit Bumrah took a Test hat-trick against West Indies in September, while Deepak Chahar took a T20I hat-trick against Bangladesh last month. Before this year, Indian bowlers had taken only five hat-tricks combined in men’s international cricket, since 1932.
Kuldeep is now level with Trent Boult, Chaminda Vaas, Saqlain Mushtaq and Wasim Akram, with two ODI hat-tricks. Lasith Malinga is the only bowler to have claimed three in the format.
