The Hundred 2023 is turning out to be a season of hat-tricks and that too across events. It started off with Shabnim Ismail's heroic hat-trick to win Welsh Fire what seemed unwinnable before the former South African speedster decided to put the brakes on Birmingham Phoenix's batters and derailed their poised run chase.
And now Southern Brave's left-arm quick Tymal Mills has followed suit as he picked up a match-winning hat-trick himself on Saturday, August 12 to help his side ease past Welsh Fire in Cardiff.
Apart from being similar in terms of coming in a winning cause, Mills' hat-trick also bears an uncanny similarity with that of Ismail's - it came on the last three balls of the innings.
It started off with Mills picking up the wicket of Ben Green with a slower one. It deceived Green and he could only manage to hit straight down to Rehan Ahmed, fielding at backward point. The next one to perish was Haris Rauf.
Rauf was also undone by a change-up delivery bowled outside off. Looking at the width on offer, the Pakistan-born tried to go over extra cover but ended up finding an alert Leus du Plooy, who didn't make a mess of it.
In walked David Payne to face the hat-trick ball. Mills followed the mantra of why fix something that ain't broken and bowled yet another slower ball which landed outside off on a fullish length and saw Payne attempt a reverse lap over the short third fielder in search of a boundary. However, to his dismay he only managed to lob it straight to the fielder Finn Allen and Mills became only the second cricketer in The Men's Hundred to grab a hat-trick.
Brave didn't waste much time in scaling the meagre total down as they won the contest by nine wickets and 41 balls to spare.
