Mohammed Shami had replaced injured Bhuvneshwar Kumar in India’s playing XI against Afghanistan in Saturday’s World Cup league game and he made an impact.
With Afghanistan needing 16 runs to win in the final over, Shami produced a brilliant hat-trick, thereby becoming the second Indian after Chetan Sharma to take three in three at the World Cup.
Shami’s feat is also the 10th ever at the biggest stage of the sport. Nabi, who was Afghanistan’s last hope, was well set in the final over. He was caught by Pandya and both Aftab Alam and Mujeeb Ur Rahman were clean bowled by the 28-year-old Bengal pacer.
Sharma’s hat-trick came against New Zealand in 1987, the fourth edition of World Cup, during India’s final group game in Nagpur. Sharma’s hat-trick was also the first-ever in World Cup history.
Apart from Sharma and Shami, there have been eight more hat-tricks at the World Cup, with Malinga having taken two.
List of World Cup hat-tricks
1) 1987: Chetan Sharma vs New Zealand
2) 1999: Saqlain Mushtaq (Pakistan) vs Zimbabwe
3) 2003: Chaminda Vaas (Sri Lanka) vs Bangladesh
4) 2003: Brett Lee (Australia) vs Kenya
5) 2007: Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka) vs South Africa
6) 2011: Kemar Roach (West Indies) vs Netherlands
7) 2011: Malinga vs Kenya
8) 2015: Steven Finn (England) vs Australia
9) 2015: JP Duminy (South Africa) vs Sri Lanka
10) *2019: Shami vs Afghanistan
