Kuldeep Yadav is over the moon after dismissing Pat Cummins to complete a hat-trick. ReutersSpinner Kuldeep Yadav joined an elite club of bowlers to have recorded a hat-trick in international cricket during the second one-dayer against Australia at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The left-arm chinaman bowler became only the fifth Indian to have claimed the rare feat at the international arena.
Chetan Sharma and Kapil Dev are the other Indians apart from Kuldeep to have recorded a hat-trick in One-Day Internationals, while Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan are the lone Indians to have achieved the distinction in Tests. One interesting aspect is that three out of these five hat-tricks have come at the iconic Eden Gardens.
Legendary all-rounder Kapil was the first to achieve the feat in Kolkata during the 1991 Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka. Kapil dismissed Roshan Mahanama with the final ball of an over and then had Rumesh Ratnayake and Sanath Jayasuriya with the first two deliveries off his next over to emulate the deed of his Haryana team-mate Chetan. Kapil ended up with figures of 4/31 as India went on to win by seven wickets.
The next hat-trick at the Eden Gardens occurred on the opening day of the second Test between India and Australia in 2001. Harbhajan dismissed Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne to become the first Indian to pick up a hat-trick in Test cricket. India went on to win the greatest Test match ever played on Indian soil by 171 runs after following on. V.V.S. Laxman's epic 281, Rahul Dravid's 180 and Harbhajan's match haul of 12 wickets went a long way in Sourav Ganguly's men scripting a remarkable victory.
Kuldeep walked into the record books by dismissing Matthew Wade, Ashton Agar and Pat Cummins in his eighth over during the second ODI Thursday night. The 22-year-old, who plays for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, bamboozled the Australian lower order and set up the home side's 50-run win.
Kuldeep had claimed a hat-trick against Scotland in the ICC U-19 World Cup in Dubai in 2014. But the achievement against the world champions in front of a huge crowd at the Eden is surely the high point of Kuldeep's career till now.
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