MATCH STORY
Follow UsPat Cummins, on June 22 (Saturday) in St Vincent, became the first bowler to take two hat-tricks in the T20 World Cup history. That’s not it, the Australian paceman also became the first bowler to pick up a hat-trick in back-to-back T20 games.
Wasim Akram is the only bowler with back-to-back hat-tricks in international cricket. The former Pakistan seamer achieved the feat against Sri Lanka in 1999 in Test cricket.
Cummins now also becomes the fifth bowler to take two hat-tricks in T20Is after Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka), Tim Southee (New Zealand), Mark Pavlovic (Serbia) and Waseem Abbas (Malta).
In Australia’s first Super 8s encounter against Bangladesh, Cummins dismissed Mahmudullah, Mahedi Hasan and Towhid Hridoy to become the seventh bowler to take a hat-trick in the T20 World Cup. And he has managed to repeat the monumental feat in the very next game.
His victims on the night were Rashid Khan, Karim Janat and Gulbadin Naib. It all started with Cummins getting Rashid caught at long-on off the final delivery of the 18th over.
The paceman returned to bowl the final over and dismissed Janat and Naib in the first two deliveries to create history, making it the eighth hat-trick in the history of the T20 World Cup.
In fact, Cummins could have had four in four, but David Warner dropped a simple catch of Nangeyalia Kharote on the third ball of the last over.
Cummins didn’t know he picked up a hat-trick against Bangladesh but he surely knew about this one. “Yeah, I remembered that one. Crazy. Played 100-odd games for Australia, (now) got two in a row,” said Cummins after the first innings.
Afghanistan were 118 for no loss in 15.4 overs but lost six wickets for 30 runs. They could only get 39 runs in the last five overs and were restricted to 148. Cummins eventually finished with figures of 3/28.
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