Hattrick is obviously a rare event in cricket and it’s even rarer that a specialist batsman gets a hattrick with the ball. It’s so rare that it’s almost unheard of.
But it has happened in the Indian Premier League (IPL) quite a few times that not just the specialist bowlers, but the all-rounders and the batsmen, who rarely bowl, have also been able to grab hattricks.
Here is an all-time IPL XI of players who have got hattricks –
Openers (Shane Watson, Sunil Narine)
Shane Watson currently plays for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), but he got a hatrrick when he was a part of the Rajasthan Royals squad in 2014. Watson doesn’t bowl a lot these days, but when he was playing for Rajasthan, he used to do quite a bit of work with the ball.
Sunil Narine was not known much for his batting when he registered a hattrick to his name playing for KKR in 2013. It was later that he was promoted to open the batting by the former KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir and the world got to know about Narine’s hitting potential.
Middle Order (Sam Curran, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh)
Sam Curran got a hattrick in his debut IPL season itself in 2019 when he was playing for Kings XI Punjab against Delhi Capitals. Curran also batted in the top order for KXIP in one of the games of the last IPL.
People, who didn’t follow the first couple of seasons of the IPL, would find it extremely hard to believe that Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj Singh are also among those who have got hattricks in the IPL.
Both got hattricks in IPL 2009 which was the second season of the IPL and Yuvraj, in fact, got two hattricks in that tournament.
All-rounders (Axar Patel, Shreyas Gopal)
Axar Patel, when he was playing for Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), was very effective while bowling in the middle phase of the innings. He used to put brakes on the run rate and used to force the batsmen to take extra risks which would result in dismissals.
Axar got into the hattrick club of the IPL in 2016 while playing for KXIP against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
Shreyas Gopal, who is a leg spinner and is a part of the Rajasthan Royals squad at the moment, got his hattrick in the previous season of the IPL. Incidentally, Gopal also did it against RCB, just like Axar.
Bowlers (Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Makhaya Ntini, Laxmipathy Balaji)
Praveen Kumar was at the peak of his career in 2010. He was not only bowling well for the Indian team at that point of time, but he was showcasing his potential in the IPL too. Praveen’s hattrick came in IPL 2010 when he was playing for RCB.
Amit Mishra is one of the only two players who have got two IPL hattricks. Mishra first did it playing for Deccan Chargers against KXIP in IPL 2011 and then he repeated it a couple of years later playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) against Pune Warriors India (PWI).
Makhaya Ntini and Laxmipathy Balaji got hattricks in the inaugural season of the IPL in 2008. Both of them did it while playing for CSK. Balaji, in fact, was the first ever bowler to get a hattrick in the history of the IPL.
