On this day in 1987, India's Chetan Sharma became the first-ever player to take a hat-trick in the history of the ICC Cricket World Cup event.
Sharma accomplished this remarkable feat during his side's match with New Zealand in their 1987 Cricket World Cup match at Nagpur.
The Kiwis had opted to bat first after winning the toss. In the later part of the innings, Chetan removed Ken Rutherford (26), wicketkeeper-batter Ian Smith (0) and Ewen Chatfield (0) on three successive balls, completing the first-ever hat trick in the tournament's history.
New Zealand posted 221/9 in their 50 overs. Dipak Patel (40), John Wright (35) were among the top scorers for Kiwis.
Chetan ended with figures of 3/51 in ten overs, out of which two overs were maiden. He was the pick of the bowlers for India. Manoj Prabhakar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri got a wicket each.
India chased down this target in just 32.1 overs. Opener Kris Srikkanth made 75 off 58 balls. Sunil Gavaskar, who was given the 'Man of the Match' award, scored 103 runs off 88 balls and had an 88-run stand for the second wicket with Azharuddin, who scored 41*.
Since then, the feat of taking ICC Cricket World Cup hat-tricks has been repeated 10 more times. Ten bowlers have taken a World Cup hat-trick, namely Pakistan pacer Saqlain Mushtaq (1999), Sri Lankan pace great Chaminda Vaas (2003), Aussie pace great Brett Lee (2003), Lasith Malinga (2007 and 2011), West Indies bowler Kemar Roach (2011), English pacer Steven Finn (2015), JP Duminy from South Africa (2015), Indian pacer Mohammad Shami (2019) and New Zealand speedster Trent Boult (2019).
( With inputs from ANI )
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