Moeen Ali was at his best during the second session of the 3rd test match played at Kennington Oval, London against South Africa. England had set a target of 492 and lost 7 wickets before the lunch. Dean Elgar and Keshav Maharaj played positively. Ali picked 2 wickets of Elgar, Rabada on the 5th and 6th ball of the 76th over. On the first ball of 78th over, Moeen Ali dismissed Morne Morkel to complete a hat trick.
He became the fourth English player to take a hat-trick. The previous three were Tom Goddard in 1938 at Johannesburg, Jonny Briggs against Australia in 1892 and Billy Bates against Australia in 1883. It was an impressive performance by Moeen Ali who took 4 wickets in the 4th innings and helped hosts to win the match by 239 runs to take a 2-1 lead. It was a brilliant performance by England team after being thrashed by South Africa in the 2nd test at Trent Bridge.
Team wise England heads the list with 14 hat tricks, followed by Australia at 11, Pakistan and West Indies with 4 each, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and New Zealand with 2 each. South African bowlers and Zimbabwe bowlers have taken 1 hat trick each in test matches. The previous hat-trick taken by a bowler in test matches was Ragana Hearth in 2016 against Australia at Galle. The left handed spinner took wickets of Adam Voges, Peter Nevil, and Mitchell Starc. Sri Lanka won that match by 229 runs.
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Moeen Ali bowled well in the third test match against South Africa. He dismissed Chris Morris before the lunch break. Keshav Maharaj and Dean Elgar were playing positively before he dismissed 3 batsmen to bowl out South Africa on 252. This was a sounding win for the hosts.
Jim Laker of England took 19 wickets against Australia. In the first innings, he took 9/53 and in the second innings, he picked all the wickets. This is the best figures by any bowler in test match history. He picked these historic 19 wickets on 31st July 1956 at Manchester.
