“He’s a class operator and showed it today,” Ireland captain Andy Balbirnie said in praise of Josh Little after the left-arm pacer became only the 6th bowler in the history of the T20 World Cup to take a hat-trick.
23-year-old Josh Little achieved this feat on Friday against New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval in the last Super 12 match of both teams.
Little took his hat-trick in the 19th over of New Zealand’s innings, helping put some breaks at the end of the innings and mitigate earlier damage the Kiwi batters had caused. In his hat trick Little dismissed New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, power-hitter James Neesham, and Mitchell Santner.
Williamson was set after scoring 61 runs off 34 balls, before pulling a short ball from Little to the deep backward square leg fielder. Neesham went for an almighty slog on his first ball but missed the ball completely; it skid on the surface and hit him on his pads. Given out on the field, Neesham took a review but it was always just a hopeful review.
Santner also received a similar delivery to Neesham, and despite looking to play it straight, the ball nipped a little and hit him plumb on the pads. Again, given out on the field, Santner opted to a review, which also got burnt, giving Little his hat trick.
This was the second hat-trick of the ongoing T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia after UAE’s Karthik Meiyappan recorded the feat against Sri Lanka in the qualifying round. Little is the second Irishman to take a T20 WC hat-trick after teammate Curtis Campher, who had achieved the feat in the 2021 edition against the Netherlands at Abu Dhabi.
List of hat-tricks in T20 World Cup history:
Brett Lee vs Bangladesh (2007)
Curtis Campher vs Netherlands (2021)
Wanindu Hasaranga vs South Africa2021)
Kagiso Rabada vs England (2021)
Karthik Meiyappan vs Sri Lanka (2022)
Joshua Little vs New Zealand (2022)
Josh Little also now has taken 39 T20I wickets in 2022, which is the most ever by a bowler in a calendar year in T20Is.
Most wickets by a bowler in T20Is during a calendar year:
39 – Josh Little (2022)
38 – Sandeep Lamichanne (2022)
36 – Wanindu Hasaranga (2021)
36 – Tabriaz Shamsi (2021)
35 – Dinesh Nakarni (2021)
35 Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2022)
Speaking about the game, New Zealand sealed their semi-final spot after a 35-run win over Ireland as they finished with 7 points. Kane Williamson was the Player of the Match for his 61-run off 35 balls knock.
