Young student achieves a unique double hat trick in club cricket game
A young Tuks student and women cricketer recently made history in a club match against Soshanguve.
A hat trick in cricket is one of the most unique achievements any bowler can aim to achieve. To take two hat tricks in one game is unheard of, or is it?
Karabo Thamea is one of a very elite group of bowlers who has managed to do so. She did it in a league game for the Tuks women’s team against Soshanguve.
The following statistics might help put her achievement into perspective. In one day international cricket it has only happened on 40 occasions (in more than 3 700 matches) that a bowler took a hat trick. In the history of test cricket there were only 42 hat tricks taken and in international Twenty20 cricket only Brett Lee (Australia), Jacob Oram (New Zealand) and Tim Southee (New Zealand) have managed to do so.
Albert Trott and Joginder Rao are the only two bowlers known to be credited with two hat tricks in the same innings.
Dane van Niekerk is so far the only South African women’s player to have taken a hat trick in an International Twenty20-game.
Thamea, a 20-year-old BSc Human Physiology student at the University of Pretoria, gets a bit shy when she has to talk about her achievement.
“It was my teammates who drew my attention to the fact that I was on a hat trick after I had taken two wickets with two balls. That was when I started feeling nervous because everybody wanted me to complete the hat trick. When I did get the wicket it was really cool. The second hat trick was an even a bigger surprise.”
Thamea finished the game having taken eight wickets for four runs.
Her cricket exploits should not really be a surprise as her mom, Zola, is a real trail blazer in South African cricket. She was the first woman of colour in Africa to be nominated to head up a cricket union in a male dominated industry. Thamea was appointed as president of the Free State Cricket Union in 2013. She was also the first woman to serve on the Cricket South Africa general council. She managed the Cricket Women’s Proteas side from 2004 to 2009.
“You could say I grew up next to a cricket field. Ever since I could remember I was always interacting with players with a cricket bat in hand,” explains Thamea.
She is currently training at Northerns. She considers herself to be an all-rounder. She opens the batting for the TuksCricket Women’s team. Her best innings so far is the 56 runs she scored against Mamelodi.
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