India vs Afghanistan: Mohammed Shami becomes 2nd Indian to grab hat-trick in World Cup
Jasprit Bumrah built the stage and Mohammed Shami finished it off with a fine hat-trick as India survived a scare against a spirited Afghanistan side at The Rose Bowl in Southampton on Saturday.
Shami came in grabbed three wickets in the last over of the Afghanistan innings to ensure India win by a narrow margin of 11 runs in a low-scoring thriller.
The 29-year-old grabbed the wickets of the set Mohammad Nabi, Aftab Alam and Mujeeb Ur Rahman to cap off a memorable day in the field for India. Shami, in the end, finished with figures of 4/40 from 9.5 overs India edged Afghanistan.
Defending 15 in the final over, Shami conceded a boundary on the first ball and the came back stronger to get Nabi to start the proceedings. Shami bowled it full, Nabi looked to go over the long on fence but did not get under it and hence, the power was not there and it went to Pandya who takes a good catch moving to his left.
Aftab was the next in line as Shami attacked the stumps, Alam swung hard but missed it and the ball crashed into the stumps to make it two in two for the Bengal pacer.
The last one capped off a nervy win. Shami again kept it simple, went full and straight at 142 kph and right at the base of the leg stump. Mujeeb swung hard but missed and the ball kisses the leg pole to seal the deal for India and maintain their unbeaten run in the World Cup so far.
In the process, he became the second Indian to take a hat-trick in World Cups after Chetan Sharma, who achieved the feat in 1987 against New Zealand. Overall, Shami is the 9th bowler to achieved the feat after Sharma, Saqlain Mushtaq (versus Zimbabwe in 1999), Chaminda Vaas(versus Bangladesh in 2003), Brett Lee (versus Kenya in 2003), Lasith Malinga (versus South Africa in 2007 and Kenya in 2011), Kemar Roach (versus Netherlands in 2011) and Steven Finn (versus Australia in 2015) and JP Duminy (versus Sri Lanka in 2005).
This is the 10th hat-trick in the history of World Cup cricket.
