As the game of cricket has evolved over the ages, bowling as an art has become more and more demanding. The modern age batsmen, with their incredible power and remarkable range of shots, are a headache to even the best of bowlers.
From the times of Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall to the era of Wawim Akram, Waqar Younis, Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath, to the current crop of bowlers like Mitchell Starc, Dale Steyn and Trent Boult, bowling has got progressively tougher.
When a Sunil Gavaskar faced someone like a Garner or Marshall, he had to make sure that the Calypso giants didn’t blow his head off with their bouncers. When a Sachin Tendulkar faced someone like Akram or Lee, he may not have had to be worried about his head but he had to be wary of those balls that whizzed past his bat at 140 clicks or above.
Coming to the modern age, a Virat Kohli or AB de Villiers don’t seem to have that sense of respect for even the best of bowlers. Players like MS Dhoni can sit back in the crease and hit a yorker out of the park with the helicopter. A yorker, which used to be a wicket taking delivery, goes for six these days. The sweep and the reverse sweep were played only against the spinners, but with the advent of T20 cricket, a Glenn Maxwell or a De Villiers have the audacity of reverse sweeping fast bowlers for sixes.
Bowlers these days have their task cut out, and a dot delivery is equivalent to a golden delivery in 20-over cricket according to the legend Glen McGrath. It takes a lot to be a successful bowler these days and in such dire conditions, to pick up a hat-trick (three wickets in three consecutive deliveries) is a highly laudable achievement.
Over the 10 seasons of the IPL, 15 hat-tricks have graced the tournament, with the latest being Samuel Badree’s against the Mumbai Indians in the ongoing Season 10 of the IPL.
Amit Mishra, the Indian leggie, features in the list thrice. Yuvraj Singh may be more popular for his huge sixes and hard hitting, but he is more than a handy bowler and has two hat-tricks under his belt in the IPL. Rajasthan Royals, who were a part of the IPL till season 8, have three representatives on the list. Only three foreign players are in the list – Ntini in 2008, Narine in 2012 and Watson in 2014.
Here is a table containing the list of all the hat-trick takers in the history of the IPL:
No. | Bowler | Opposition | Season |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Lakshmipathy Balaji ( CSK) | KXIP | 2008 |
2 | Amit Mishra (DD) | DC | 2008 |
3 | Makhaya Ntini (CSK) | KKR | 2008 |
4 | Yuvraj Singh (KXIP) | RCB | 2009 |
5 | Rohit Sharma (DC) | MI | 2009 |
6 | Yuvraj Singh (KXIP) | DC | 2009 |
7 | Praveen Kumar (RCB) | RR | 2010 |
8 | Amit Mishra (DC) | KXIP | 2011 |
9 | Ajit Chandila (RR) | PWI | 2012 |
10 | Sunil Narine (KKR) | KXIP | 2013 |
11 | Amit Mishra (SRH) | PWI | 2013 |
12 | Pravin Tambe (RR) | KKR | 2014 |
13 | Shane Watson (RR) | SRH | 2014 |
14 | Axar Patel (KXIP) | GL | 2016 |
| 15 | Samuel Badree (RCB) | MI | 2017 |
| 16 | Andrew Tye (GL) | RPS | 2017 |
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