Taking a hat-trick is one of the important achievements in a bowler’s life as picking 3 wickets in 3 consecutive balls is a rare possibility. Till now there have only 48 ODI hat-tricks in more than 4,000 ODI matches and in World Cups, this number gets even lower as the batsmen would be at their best in an important event like a World Cup.
New Zealand pacer Trent Boult became the latest addition to this list when he dismissed the Australian batsmen Usman Khawaja, Mitchell Starc and Jason Behrendorff in the three consecutive deliveries of the round-robin stage match in the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup.
Earlier, in this 2019 CWC, Indian pacer Mohammed Shami claimed a hat-trick when he took the wickets of Mohammad Nabi, Aftab Alam and Mujeeb Ur Rahman off three consecutive balls in the match against Afghanistan at Southampton.
But there have few hat-tricks taken in the World Cup and in today’s stat, we will tell you about all of them –
| Bowler | Opposition | Players | Match Date | Venue |
| Chetan Sharma (Ind) | New Zealand | Ken Rutherford, Ian Smith and Ewen Chatfield | 31 October 1987 | Nagpur |
| Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak) | Zimbabwe | Henry Olonga, Adam Huckle, Pommie Mbangwa | 11 June 1999 | The Oval |
| Chaminda Vaas (SL) | Bangladesh | Hannan Sarkar, Mohammad Ashraful, Ehsanul Haque | 14 February 2003 | Pietermaritzburg |
| Brett Lee (Aus) | Kenya | Kennedy Otieno, Brijal Patel, David Obuya | 15 March 2003 | Durban |
| Lasith Malinga (SL) | South Africa | Shaun Pollock, Andrew Hall, Jacques Kallis, Makhaya Ntini | 28 March 2007 | Georgetown |
| Kemar Roach (WI) | Netherlands | Pieter Seelaar, Bernard Loots, Berend Westdijk | 28 February 2011 | New Delhi |
| Lasith Malinga (SL) | Kenya | Tanmay Mishra, Peter Ongondo, Shem Ngoche | 1 March 2011 | Colombo |
| Steven Finn (Eng) | Australia | Brad Haddin, Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Johnson | 14 February 2015 | Melbourne |
| JP Duminy (SA) | Sri Lanka | Angelo Mathews, Nuwan Kulasekara and Tharndhu Kaushal | 18 March 2015 | Sydney |
| Mohammed Shami (Ind) | Afghanistan | Mohammad Nabi, Aftab Alam and Mujeeb Ur Rahman | 22 June 2019 | Southampton |
| Trent Boult (NZ) | Australia | Usman Khawaja, Mitchell Starc and Jason Behrendorff | 29 June 2019 | Lord’s |
In the history of the World Cup, so far there have been 11 instances when a bowler has got a hat-trick. The first bowler to take a hat-trick in a World Cup match is Chetan Sharma from India; he took a hat-trick in the 1987 World Cup against New Zealand. Lasith Malinga from Sri Lanka is the only player to take two hat-tricks in World Cup. His first hat-trick came against South Africa in 2007 World Cup and the second one was against Kenya in the 2011 edition of the ICC World Cup.
Lasith Malinga is also the only player to pick up 4 wickets in 4 consecutive deliveries in a match. He did so in the 2007 World Cup match against South Africa, where he picked up 4 wickets.
Other players to take a hat-trick in a World Cup are Saqlain Mushtaq from Pakistan, Chaminda Vaas from Sri Lanka, Brett Lee from Australia, Kemar Roach from West Indies, Steven Finn from England and JP Duminy from South Africa.
Stats updated till the 29th June 2019