Stuart Broad becomes 4th player to take two Test hat-tricks

Stuart Broad of England leaves the field after his first innings hat trick

Stuart Broad became only the fourth bowler to take two hat-tricks in Test cricket today at Headingley in Leeds.

On day one, in the final Test of the Two-Test series against Sri Lanka, the 27-year-old picked up the wickets of Kumar Sangakkara, Dinesh Chandimal and Shamindra Eranga to become the first English cricketer to take two Test hat-tricks.

Inititally, the hat-trick had gone unnoticed after Chandimal and Eranga were dismissed in the first two balls of the 65th over. Everyone at the ground seemed to have forgotten that Sangakkara had been caught out on the last ball of Broad’s previous over. Only at the end of the over did everyone at the stadium notice the feat, when Alastair Cook went ahead and congratulated his premier fast bowler.

Speaking about the hat-trick going unnoticed, Broad said: "I heard that bloke on the Tannoy and was wondering why he mentioned the last ball of the previous over. That's when I realised it was a hat-trick."

The previous bowlers to take two Test hat-tricks were High Tumble, Jimmy Matthews and Wasim Akram.