Rawalpindi: Pakistan teenager Naseem Shah created a world record on Sunday when he took a hat-trick on Day 3 of the first Test against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi. In his 7th over of the 2nd innings, Shah trapped NajmulHossainShanto to send him back to the hut for 38. In the next two consecutive deliverers, the seamer trapped Taijul Islam leg before for a duck, and then got rid of Mahmudullah, to complete his hat-trick.
Doing so, Shah became the youngest bowler to grab a hat-trick in Test cricket at the age of 16 years and 359 days. Bangladesh’s leg-spinner AlokKapali was previously the youngest to record a Test hat trick — at 19 — also against Pakistan, in Peshawar in 2003.
Shah, overall, is the fourth Pakistan bowler to achieve a hat-trick, after Mohammad Smai, Abdul Razzaq and WasimAkram, who had achieved the feat twice in his legendary career.
Naseem, who burst onto the scene on Pakistan’s Australia tour last year, is also the youngest fast bowler and second bowler overall to take five wickets in a Test innings. He achieved that feat at the age of 16 years and 307 days against Sri Lanka in Karachi last year.
On the back of the bowler’s efforts, Bangladesh found themselves reeling at 126/6 at stumps, still trailing by 86 runs. Pakistan, earlier, on the back of a century from Babar Azam, posted 445 in the first innings, in reply to Bangladesh’ 233, to take a lead of 212 runs.Saif, playing his first Test, was on a pair after his second-ball duck in the first innings but he started confidently to reach 16 with four boundaries before he was bowled by Naseem.
Iqbal, fresh from scoring the highest first-class score on Bangladeshi soil of 334 not out last week, was trapped leg-before by Yasir. Earlier, Pakistan lost seven wickets either side of lunch with Sohail holding the innings together.
He struck seven fours and two sixes for his third Test half-century before holing out off spinner Taijul Islam to deep mid-wicket. Last man Naseem was run out to end Pakistan’s first innings.
