5 players with a crazy number of hat-tricks in cricket

4. Lasith Malinga

Lasith Malinga celebrates his hat-trick against Australia

Separamadu Lasith Malinga finds his name in this list as the only player to have taken 3 hat tricks in one-day internationals. The first two of his hat tricks both came in World Cups – against South Africa in 2007 and against Kenya in 2011 and the last one came against Australia in an ODI in Colombo.

An interesting fact about his third victim during his hat-trick against Kenya is that Shem Ngoche was completing an unwanted hat-trick of his own - he batted in 3 innings, only faced 3 balls and was dismissed 3 times. What’s more incredible is that Malinga remains the only bowler with two World Cup hat-tricks and the incredible feat of picking up 4 wickets in four balls.

Lasith Malinga remains the most successful bowler for Sri Lanka in Twenty20 Internationals.