Where does Irfan Pathan's Karachi triple-strike rank on the list of the greatest hat-tricks?

The article is presented in three parts. In the first, I present tables created using the analytical values that are key to evaluating the hat-tricks. In the second part, I cover the analytical snippets that are smaller groupings, not requiring full tables. Finally, in the third part, I cover a few interesting nuggets related to hat-tricks. I have perused each scorecard to unearth such nuggets. The result is a multifarious article which will appeal to all followers of the game. It is possible that minor errors might have crept in because of this unusual process. Kindly excuse those.

Everyone knows what happens in a hat-trick in cricket. It is the special event of a bowler capturing three wickets in three consecutive balls, within the same match. The term "hat-trick" first appeared in cricket to describe HH Stephenson capturing three wickets with three consecutive deliveries. He achieved the feat for the All-England XI against the Hallam-22 at the Hyde Park ground, Sheffield in 1858. The delighted fans held a collection for Stephenson, and presented him with a hat bought with the proceeds.

Till date, 46 hat-tricks have been taken by 42 bowlers in 45 Tests. They range from one that reduced the home team to 0 for 3 at the end of the first over to one that did virtually nothing - except move a team from 528 for 7 to 528 all out. However, lots of fascinating insights are there waiting to be discovered by perusing the scorecards and that is the object of this exercise.

Now it is time to go on a data-mining expedition.

Let us first move on to the tables.

1. Quality of batters dismissed
The quality of the batters dismissed is determined by the career batting averages of those dismissed. I have zeroed in on the career figures rather than the career-to-date figures so that there is a degree of constancy to the analysis, in that the value for a batter will remain the same whenever he was dismissed. Also, it does not really matter what we use. Career batting averages make for easier evaluation.

The lowest index value of six has been shared by three bowlers. Irfan Pathan, for his opening-over dismissals of the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 batters. Nuwan Zoysa did the same thing, but in the second over of the innings in Harare. He dismissed Trevor Gripper, Murray Goodwin, and Neil Johnson for 0. Wasim Akram achieved this in the Asian Test Championship final in Dhaka in 1999. He dismissed Avishka Gunawardene, Chaminda Vaas, and Mahela Jayawardene in the Sri Lankan second innings. But not for zero, like Pathan and Zoysa did.

At the other end of the table, the total of 27 is achieved by dismissing Nos. 9, 10 and 11. Five bowlers - Lohmann, Jimmy Matthews, Lindsay Kline, Mohammad Sami, and Kapali have done this.

3. Aggregate runs of batters dismissed
This index allows us to identify the bowlers who achieved something special - dismissing all the hat-trick victims for 0. A high value of the index indicates that the hat-trick was launched by dismissing a set batter at a relatively high score. Seven bowlers have achieved the feat of dismissing all batters at 0. Pathan appears in all the three tables while Zoysa appears in two. At the other end, six bowlers have the index scores greater than 100. The very high total of 302 was reached when Fleming started his hat-trick in Rawalpindi by dismissing Saleem Malik for 237.

4. Team summary
The English bowlers have achieved the maximum number of hat-tricks with 14. It is true that they have also played the maximum number of Tests. Australia follow with 11 hat-tricks. Pakistan - not surprising since they are known for their bowling prowess - are next with five.

When it comes to the frequency of hat-tricks, there are surprises. Bangladesh leads with two hat-tricks in their 146 Tests - an average of 73 Tests per hat-trick. England follow with 77 and Australia, with 79 Tests per hat-trick. The highest frequency value appears for New Zealand.

When it comes to hat-tricks against teams, Australia have had nine against them. West Indies follow with seven and England, with six. England, Australia and India are the only countries with a positive difference on the hat-tricks count (more "for" than "versus").

1. Innings splits
The first classification is to group the hat-tricks in the innings they were taken.

Innings 1: 14
Innings 2: 11
Innings 3: 13
Innings 4: 8

This is understandable since fewer fourth innings are played - only 1737 in 2555 Tests.

2. Results summary
Onwards to the classification-based on results. No surprises here. When a hat-trick occurs, it increases the probability of a result.

Won: 28
Drawn: 7
Lost: 11

3. Location summary
This is a surprise. More hat-tricks have been taken away than at home. It is quite difficult to explain this. Matthews' double hat-trick and the Akram one in Dhaka are at neutral locations.

Home: 21
Away: 22
Neutral: 3

4. Year summary
The year 1999 saw four hat-tricks, two of these by Akram. Compare this with the average frequency of over four years per single hat-trick occurrence. In 2004, three hat-tricks were taken. Surprisingly, Dhaka and Harare figured in both these lists.

1999: 4
2004: 3
1912, 1988, 1994, 2000, 2003: 2

5. Decade summary
The first decade of the millennium saw no fewer than 11 hat-tricks. When you combine this with the above referenced data, 15 hat-tricks were taken in the 11 years between 1999 and 2010. The decades before and after the year 2000 had seven hat-tricks each. That makes it 25 hat-tricks in this 30-year period.

2000s: 11
2010s: 7
1990s: 7

6. Bowler type summary
As expected, the fast/medium-fast bowlers have achieved this 29 times, leaving the other 17 to the spinners. The surprise is that right-hand offspinners have taken hat-tricks no fewer than nine times - a seemingly high figure for the non-mystery spinners.

Left-arm fast/medium: 6
Right-arm fast/medium: 23
Left-arm spin: 4
Right-arm legspin: 4
Right-arm offspin: 9

7. Country summary
The following is the summary of the countries in which the hat-tricks have happened. India is the only country in which only one hat-trick has been taken.

Australia: 12
England: 9
Pakistan: 8

8. City summary
A grouping of the cities in which hat-tricks have occurred is on expected lines. The city that started it all has the highest frequency. It is possible that these occurrences could be on multiple grounds within the same city.

Melbourne: 5
Manchester: 4 (three matches)
Lahore: 4
Leeds: 3

9. Quality of batters dismissed
Nine batters with career averages above 50 were dismissed during the course of the 46 hat-tricks. There are also a couple of 49-ers. The top five are featured below. Pathan is the only bowler to have dismissed two batters with 50-plus averages during his hat-trick.

AC Voges: 61.9
KC Sangakkara: 57.4
AD Nourse: 53.8
BC Lara: 52.9
Javed Miandad: 52.6

1. Two hat-tricks in a match
This was achieved by Matthews in the Triangular Tournament against South Africa at Old Trafford in 1912. The surprising thing is that these were the only wickets he took in the match. And he did it totally unaided. In the first innings, he bowled Rolland Beaumont and had Sid Pegler and Tommy Ward lbw. In the second innings, he bowled Herbie Taylor, and caught and bowled Schwarz and Ward. Ward was Matthews' third victim in each instance.

2. Two hat-tricks in career
Matthews, Hugh Trumble, Akram and Stuart Broad have taken hat-tricks twice in their careers. As already seen, Matthews did this in the same match. Akram achieved the double in the same year - 1999. No bowler has taken three hat-tricks.

3. Unaided hat-tricks
We have already mentioned Matthews. Dominic Cork bowled Richie Richardson, and trapped Junior Murray and Carl Hooper lbw at Old Trafford in 1995. Sami had Charita Buddhika and Nuwan Zoysa lbw, and bowled Muthiah Muralidaran in Lahore in 2002. Jermaine Lawson bowled Brett Lee and Stuart MacGill, and two innings later had Justin Langer leg before in Bridgetown in 2002.

4. Identical dismissal hat-tricks
Hugh Trumble's hat-trick in Melbourne in 1902 had three non-wicketkeeper catches (one caught and bowled). Peter Petherick had a similar distribution in Lahore in 1976. Glenn McGrath in Perth in 2000 and Keshav Maharaj in St Lucia in 2021 had three non-wicketkeeper catches.

5. Special hat-tricks
Courtney Walsh dismissed Tony Dodemaide in the first innings in Brisbane in 1988. Then, coming as first change, he dismissed Mike Veletta and Graeme Wood off two successive balls in the third innings.

In the next Test of the series, Merv Hughes dismissed Curtly Ambrose off the last ball of his 35th over in the first innings in Perth. Off the first ball of his next over, Hughes dismissed Patrick Patterson, ending the innings. In the third innings, Hughes dismissed Gordon Greenidge first ball.

Lawson dismissed Lee and MacGill off the last two balls of the first innings in Bridgetown. West Indies followed on and set Australia eight runs to win. In the fourth innings, Lawson dismissed Langer, first ball.

6. The longest hat-tricks
The above three hat-tricks were the longest ones. It is tough to define the time. But in terms of overs, Lawson's was the longest - with 245 overs bowled during the hat-trick. Walsh's hat-trick was interrupted by 138 overs (113 + approx 25). Hughes' complex hat-trick had 100 overs bowled from his first wicket to his last.

7. Debut hat-tricks
Maurice Allom, Petherick, and Fleming's hat-tricks came in their debut Tests. Although Fleming took 75 wickets in his career, it can be said that none of these bowlers had very good careers.

8. Farewell hat-tricks
Trumble and Geoff Griffin signed off their careers with a hat-trick in their farewell Tests. Trumble, on a happy note, and Griffin, in a rather controversial manner.

9. Double victims of hat-tricks
Romesh Kaluwitharana, MacGill, and Ward were batters in two hat-tricks each. MacGill was bowled for a duck each time, while Ward dismissed for a duck each time in the same match, as seen earlier. Kaluwitharana was caught behind for 100 and 4. No batter has been part of three hat-tricks.

10. Players at both ends of a hat-trick
Darren Gough, Broad, Zoysa, Rangana Herath, Harbhajan Singh, and Shane Warne have been on both sides of a hat-trick - with ball and bat

11. Highest score at fall of first wicket
These are, arguably the least useful of hat-tricks. Lawson took his hat-trick at the huge score of 605 for 7. It did not do much good for West Indies, however. Sami was slightly better, taking the last three wickets of Sri Lanka, at 528 for 7, but Pakistan lost by eight wickets. Hughes took his complex multi-innings hat-trick when West Indies were at 448 for 8. It is no wonder that Australia lost.

12. Lowest number of career wickets with a hat-trick
Kapali bowled 183 rather harmless overs and took six wickets at a strike rate of 184 and an average of 118 in his Test career. Amid this carnage is a hat-trick - that means the other three wickets took 182.3 overs. One wonders why he was bowling at all. At the other extreme, Griffin played in only two Tests, took eight wickets, and had a hat-trick to his name. Despite his rather inglorious exit, he can be rather satisfied that he has achieved something very few have. Allom played in five Tests and took14 wickets, but he had a hat-trick to his name in his debut Test.

13. Player involvement
The 46 hat-tricks involved 138 bowlers, 138 batters, 68 fielders (including the caught-and-bowled credited to the bowler as fielder) and one stumping. I tabulated these 345 players to see the maximum involvement of any player. The results are given below.

Jimmy Matthews: 8 (six as the bowler and two c&b)
Hugh Trumble: 8 (six as the bowler and two c&b)
Stuart Broad: 7 (six as the bowler and one as the batter)

14. Close matches
Surprisingly, the results of the 45 matches portray a trend of comfortable wins or losses for the team that had the hat-trick-taking bowler. The closest was a 72-run loss for England in Sydney in 1892 when left-arm spinner John Briggs took a hat-trick. There were 11 innings wins, 15 100-plus-run wins (out of these 15, nine were by 200-plus runs) and ten wins by six or more wickets. So one can safely conclude that the hat-tricks had very little influence on the results.

15. Innings wickets captured
Sixteen bowlers took a hat-trick and finished with only those three wickets in the innings. One bowler, Lohmann, took eight wickets in the innings.

16. Hat-tricks off the first and last balls of match
No one has taken a hat-trick off the first three balls of the match. Lohmann, Trumble, Kline and Moeen Ali ended their respective matches with hat-tricks.

17. Hat-tricks in Ashes series
As the most important of all bilateral contests, the Ashes series are unique sporting events. Hence I have had a special look into these Tests. No fewer than nine hat-tricks have been taken in these contests - that is a fifth of all hat-tricks. These have occurred in 361 Tests, leading to a high frequency of 40 Tests per hat-trick. However, it must be said that six of the first seven hat-tricks in history were between these two founding teams.

18. Month of occurrence
The maximum number of hat-tricks were taken in the month of January, with eight occurrences. This is understandable since this is a very busy month of the season. The second-highest occurrence is in March, with seven. The month of December has only five occurrences, despite having hosted the maximum number of Tests. Finally, the month of September has had no occurrence. It is a lean month for Tests. My potpourri section this time covers this fascinating topic.

I would put Matthews' amazing performance in the Manchester Test against South Africa in top place. Two hat-tricks in one Test, finishing off both the innings in style, all wickets taken in an unaided manner - what more does one need? The hat-trick in the South African first innings was more important. South Africa had batted quite well and were at 265 for 7, strongly placed to avoid the follow-on. Then Matthews struck.

Pathan's hat-trick is, arguably, the second best of all time. In the first over of the match, three top-order batters, all dismissed for 0, away from home - it has everything going for it. Unfortunately, then Kamran Akmal played an all-time-great innings, and in the second innings the Indian bowlers were taken to the cleaners, so India deservedly lost. But the result does not take away from the quality of Pathan's performance.

Akram's hat-trick against Sri Lanka in Dhaka is in next place. The top-order dismissals and the overall high quality of batters dismissed indicate the high impact it had on the game. Also, for what it is worth, it was the final of the Asian Test Championship.

McGrath's top-of-the-innings hat-trick, which had Lara as the middle first-ball wicket, is in fourth place. West Indies never recovered from 19 for 4 and Australia won comfortably.

Zoysa's is an almost identical performance to Pathan's. It matches Pathan's in every manner, hence it has to be rated quite high. Only the overall lower quality of batters dismissed pushes it to fifth place. However, it resulted in an away win for Sri Lanka, albeit against Zimbabwe.

All the key files have been uploaded and can be downloaded for viewing by clicking here.

In each article, I present a numerical/anecdotal outlier relating to Test and/or ODI cricket. This time the outlier theme is "The number of Tests that have been played in each of the 12 months across the years." Very relevant to the last nugget that was presented.

With the preponderance of Tests during the Christmas and New Year period in the southern hemisphere and in Asia, it is no surprise that December has hosted the maximum number of Tests with January following next. These two months together have accounted for over 25% of all Tests. March follows closely behind, maybe because Asian countries normally have their Tests during this period. It's also around the time the West Indies season is about to start. The rest is on expected lines. The lowest population is for September, with 66 Tests. This is quite understandable since September is usually the off-month after the end of the English season and beginning of the seasons elsewhere. May is a similar in-between-seasons month and has hosted only 70 Tests.

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