Irfan Pathan became 33rd player in cricket history and only the second Indian to claim a Test match hat-trick, when he dismissed Salman Butt, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf off the fourth, fifth and sixth ball of his first over in Karachi Test. The first and only other Indian to make a hat-trick is Harbhajan Singh, who did so against Australia at Kolkata in 2000-01.
A total of 36 hat-tricks have now been made, with Australia's Hugh Trumble, Thomas Matthews and Pakistan's Wasim Akram performing this feat on two occasions each.The country-wise break-up of hat-tricks:
Australia - 10
England - 10
West Indies - 4
Pakistan - 4
New Zealand - 2
India - 2
South Africa - 1
Sri Lanka - 1
Zimbabwe - 1
Bangladesh - 1
India is the only country against which no hat-trick has been made in Test cricket till date.The break-up of countries against which hat-tricks have been made:
Australia - 8
England - 5
West Indies - 5
Pakistan - 5
S.Africa - 5
Sri Lanka - 4
Bangladesh - 2
New Zealand - 1
Zimbabwe - 1
Irfan Pathan's feat of claiming a hat-trick in the first over of a match is unparallaled in the Test chronicles. The previous record of 'earliest' hat-trick in a Test was held by Sri Lanka's Nuwan Zoysa, who claimed a hat-trick in second over of the match against Zimbabwe at Harare in 1999-00 (his first over in the match). However Zoysa's hat-trick is unique in the way that it came off first three balls he sent down in the match.
