THE HAT-TRICKSTERS

ONE of the more sensational feats to be accomplished on the cricket field is undoubtedly the hat-trick when a bowler claims three wickets with consecutive deliveries. The “trick” has been performed on 40 occasions by 36 players in Tests, four of whom have each done it twice.The term “hat-trick” originated in the early days of the game, when a bowler was presented with a hat in recognition of his outstanding performance in out-witting the three batsmen. It should be noted that a hat-trick could be achieved in the same innings or over two innings of the same game but cannot be accomplished over two matches.
In the 139 years of Test cricket, only three men have distinguished themselves by taking a hat-trick on their very first Test appearance.
The first to do so was Maurice Allom, a tall, strongly built English right-arm medium-fast bowler, who debuted against New Zealand at Christchurch in January, 1930. It was New Zealand’s inaugural Test match and the players were understandably nervous.
However, they were coming up against an under-strength England team, since a number of their regular players were engaging the West Indies in the Caribbean in a simultaneous Test series.
New Zealand, winning the toss and batting first, were struggling at 20 runs for three wickets when in Allom’s eighth over he sunk them to 21 for seven,creating history in the process.
His first ball cannoned into the pads of the eventual top-scorer, Roger Blunt, and a leg-bye was taken. The opener, Stewart Dempster, was comprehensively bowled next ball while the Kiwi skipper, Tom Lowry, played and missed at the third.
The very next delivery he was dismissed leg before wicket to send the host team reeling at 21 for five. Allom again struck with his fifth delivery when he had Ken James caught at the wicket.
With the innings in tatters, the 23 year old set out with the hat-trick ball to the number eight batsman, Ted Badcock. He hardly had time, energy or courage to raise the bat and subsequently the ball went crashing onto his stumps, sending a wave of exultation on the field of play and a fearful silence in the stands.
Allom had not only become the first man to claim a hat-trick on Test debut, but also the first player to take four wickets in five balls– a rare occurrence achieved some 48 years later by England’s Chris Old against Pakistan and in 1990-91 by Pakistani Wasim Akram against the West Indies.
New Zealand recovered to be all out for 112, but in the end lost the match by eight wickets in two days, as the debutant grabbed five for 38 and three for 17 to register match figures of eight for 55. Unfortunately, due to business commitments, his Test career was over in a year, having played a further four matches and snapping up an additional six wickets.
After Allom’s heroics, the world waited for 46 years before another debutant performed the feat.
Peter James Petherick was one of four players making their debut in the New Zealand-Pakistan Test of the 1976-77 series in Lahore. The wicketkeeper Warren Lees and the leg-spinning all-rounder, Robert Anderson, joined him as newcomers on the New Zealand team, while Javed Miandad was playing his maiden match for the Pakistanis.
Pakistan took first strike on winning the toss and were in trouble at 55 for the loss of four wickets as Richard Hadlee rocked the much vaunted top-order of the Mohammed brothers Sadiq and Mustaq, the stylish Majid Khan and the technically correct Zaheer Abbas by disposing of three of them.
Miandad then joined forces with another stroke-maker, Asif Iqbal, and after carefully repairing the damage proceeded to dominate the attack adding a huge 281 for the fifth wicket as the bowlers wilted under the pressure.
Suddenly, the 34-year-old off-spinner Petherick, who had played his first first-class match only a year earlier for Otago, had Miandad caught by Hadlee for a truly remarkable career-launching 163. His next delivery had the hard-hitting Wasim Raja caught and bowled.
The hat-trick ball, ironically, was to a man who had taken a wicket with his first delivery in Test cricket and was a more than useful lower-order batsman-Intikhab Alam. He did not survive as he was out caught close-in to send Petherick and his teammates into deserving joyous celebration.
Petherick ended the innings with three for 103 which incidentally is the most expensive analysis by someone doing the hat-trick. He had two other victims in the second innings, but his efforts could not have stopped Pakistan winning the match by six wickets.
It was always going to be difficult for the “hattrickster” to maintain those lofty standards, even more so with him being on the wrong side of 30. Subsequently, his career came to a swift end, totalling just six Tests and 16 wickets at 42.56 runs apiece.
In October, 1994, a youthful right-arm fast-medium bowler played his first Test for Australia against Pakistan at Rawalpindi, which was the venue for the second match of the series.
Damien Fleming had to wait almost two days into the match for his first bowl as Pakistan inserted the Australians who responded with a mammoth 521, built mainly on a typically aggressive 110 by the opener Michael Slater. In reply, Pakistan fell way below the follow-on target, falling for 260 with Craig Mc Dermott and Fleming each snarling four wickets.
Asked to bat again, the Pakistanis put up a far better showing and were cruising at 469 for three wickets when Fleming wrote his name in the record books in the space of three deliveries.
First he had the solid Aamer Malik caught by Michael Bevan for a fighting 65, which ended a 133-run partnership for the fourth wicket and then had the young and inexperienced Inzamam-ul-Haq leg before wicket for a golden duck with the last ball of the over to relegate the home team to 469 for five wickets.
In the next over nine runs were added, then Fleming was at the start of his run to bowl the first ball of his new over–the hat-trick delivery. He looked up to see a silky, top-quality right-handed batsman named Salim Malik, who had 237 gloriously compiled runs to his name.
Undaunted, Fleming kept his cool and an excellent line and length that was good enough to cause a tentative bat to be presented resulting in an edge to the wicketkeeper, Ian Healey, which he accepted gleefully.
In the end, Pakistan were able to save the match after trailing for most of the contest. Although Fleming would have relished a victory for his team, he was justly satisfied that he had entered a very exclusive “three-man club.”