A bowler taking wickets in three consecutive deliveries, in other words, a ‘hat-trick’, is a rarity in cricket. To put things into perspective, in the Test format’s existence of almost one and a half centuries, there are only 46 occurrences when a bowler has been able to take a hat-trick. This shows that bagging a hat trick is one of the toughest jobs in cricket and one needs to be extremely skilled and accurate to produce three wicket-taking deliveries in as many attempts.
But in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the occurrence of a hat-trick is not too infrequent as in the past fifteen seasons of IPL, there have been twenty-one instances when a bowler has taken a hat-trick. Maybe the swiftness of the format has played a part in this because batters tend to take more risks without putting too much value on their wicket.
In its inaugural season in 2008, three bowlers had put their names on the list of hat-trick takers. After that, barring three seasons, hat tricks have occurred in each of the editions. Let’s check out who are the players with an IPL hat trick to their names.
Players who have taken a hat-trick in IPL
Due to its briefness, a 20-over match can turn upside down within an over. In a batter-dominated format, by taking wickets in quick succession, a bowling team can bring the momentum of the match to their side. Thus, a hat-trick is of immense value in the T20 format and IPL is no exception as well.
Six hat-tricks in the first two seasons
Lakshmipathy Balaji, of Chennai Super Kings, was the first man ever to take a hat-trick in the IPL. In IPL 2008, while playing against Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings), the right-arm pacer took the wickets of Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, and VRV Singh. Amit Mishra and Makhaya Ntini were the other bowlers who took a hat-trick in that season.
The instances of hat tricks in the next season were unique as part-time bowlers picked up those hat tricks. While representing Kings XI Punjab, Yuvraj Singh took two hat tricks in IPL 2009 and Rohit Sharma of Deccan Chargers bagged the other hat trick. Yuvraj is the only one to grab multiple hat-tricks in a single IPL season.
Only eight hat tricks in the following seven seasons
There was only one instance of a hat trick in each edition in the following three seasons. Praveen Kumar became the first Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) bowler to take a hat-trick in IPL 2010. Amit Mishra claimed his second IPL hat-trick in 2011 and Ajit Chandila of Rajasthan Royals picked up his hat trick in the 2012 edition.
The 2013 season saw two spinners taking hat-tricks as Kolkata Knight Riders’ mystery spinner Sunil Narine exhibited his wizardry and Amit Mishra, representing Sunrisers Hyderabad, bagged his third IPL hat-trick. Leg spinner Mishra is the only bowler in the history of IPL to claim three hat-tricks.
The 2014 season witnessed two hat-tricks, with both being taken by Rajasthan Royals bowlers – Pravin Tambe and Shane Watson. 2015 was the first edition when no hat tricks were taken in IPL. Axar Patel was the lone bowler to bag a hat-trick in IPL 2016.
Hits and misses in terms of hat-tricks in the rest of the seasons
After a year’s drought in taking a hat trick, the 2017 edition saw three different hat-trick takers. RCB’s Samuel Badree took a hat-trick against Mumbai Indians in a losing cause. While playing for Gujarat Lions, Andrew Tye put on a splendid show as he became the solitary bowler to claim a hat-trick on his IPL debut. The other hat-trick taker of that season was Jaydev Unadkat of Rising Pune Supergiants.
No bowler could take a hat-trick in IPL 2018, but in the subsequent season, Sam Curran and Shreyas Gopal registered their names as hat-trick takers of IPL. Gopal’s hat-trick was hugely appreciated as his victims were reputed ones – Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, and Marcus Stoinis. 2020 was another season when no bowler was able to pick up three wickets in as many deliveries.
Not only Harshal Patel was the highest wicket-taker of IPL 2021, but he was the only hat-trick taker of the season also as he dismissed Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, and Rahul Chahar. Yuzvendra Chahal was the last one to take a hat-trick in IPL when he demolished Kolkata Knight Riders in a league stage game. Chahal finished the season as the top wicket-taker.
List of players with a hat-trick in IPL
| Player | Team | Victims | Against | Season |
| Lakshmipathy Balaji | Chennai Super Kings | Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, VRV Singh | Kings XI Punjab | 2008 |
| Amit Mishra | Delhi Daredevils | Dwaraka Ravi Teja, Pragyan Ojha, Rudra Pratap Singh | Deccan Chargers | 2008 |
| Makhaya Ntini | Chennai Super Kings | Sourav Ganguly, Debabrata Das, David Hussey | Kolkata Knight Riders | 2008 |
| Yuvraj Singh | Kings XI Punjab | Robin Uthappa, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 2009 |
| Rohit Sharma | Deccan Chargers | Abhishek Nayar, Harbhajan Singh, Jean-Paul Duminy | Mumbai Indians | 2009 |
| Yuvraj Singh | Kings XI Punjab | Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Symonds, Y Venugopal Rao | Deccan Chargers | 2009 |
| Praveen Kumar | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Damien Martyn, Sumit Narwal, Paras Dogra | Rajasthan Royals | 2010 |
| Amit Mishra | Deccan Chargers | Ryan McLaren, Mandeep Singh, Ryan Harris | Kings XI Punjab | 2011 |
| Ajit Chandila | Rajasthan Royals | Jesse Ryder, Sourav Ganguly, Robin Uthappa | Pune Warriors India | 2012 |
| Sunil Narine | Kolkata Knight Riders | David Hussey, Azhar Mahmood, Gurkeerat Singh | Kings XI Punjab | 2013 |
| Amit Mishra | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rahul Sharma, Ashok Dinda | Pune Warriors India | 2013 |
| Pravin Tambe | Rajasthan Royals | Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Ryan ten Doeschate | Kolkata Knight Riders | 2014 |
| Shane Watson | Rajasthan Royals | Shikhar Dhawan, Moises Henriques, Karn Sharma | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 2014 |
| Axar Patel | Kings XI Punjab | Dinesh Karthik, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja | Gujarat Lions | 2016 |
| Samuel Badree | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Parthiv Patel, Mitchell McClenaghan, Rohit Sharma | Mumbai Indians | 2017 |
| Andrew Tye | Gujrat Lions | Ankit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Shardul Thakur | Rising Pune Supergiants | 2017 |
| Jaydev Unadkat | Rising Pune Supergiants | Bipul Sharma, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 2017 |
| Sam Curran | Kings XI Punjab | Harshal Patel, Kagiso Rabada, Sandeep Lamichhane | Delhi Capitals | 2019 |
| Shreyas Gopal | Rajasthan Royals | Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Marcus Stoinis | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 2019 |
| Harshal Patel | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Rahul Chahar | Mumbai Indians | 2021 |
| Yuzvendra Chahal | Rajasthan Royals | Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Mavi, Pat Cummins | Kolkata Knight Riders | 2022 |
Wrap-up
India’s premier franchise league, IPL, has never been short of outstanding individual performances and that shows in the number of hat-tricks taken by the bowlers. The best in the business ply their trades in this league and that has been reflected in this list of hat-trick takers.
FAQs
Q1:- Which bowler conceded the least runs while taking a wicket?
Ans:- Rohit Sharma conceded only 6 runs while taking a hat-trick and finished the match with four wickets.
Q2:- Bowlers of which IPL team has taken the most number of hat-tricks?
Ans:- There are five bowlers from Rajasthan Royals who have claimed hat-tricks in IPL.
Q3:- Who is the youngest bowler to pick up an IPL hat trick?
Ans:- Sam Curran holds the record of the youngest bowler to claim a hat-trick in IPL as he was at the age of 20 years and 302 days when he took the hat-trick.
