Currently, the 2022 Ireland tour of New Zealand is on in full swing and after a whitewash in the ODI series, New Zealand is all set to complete a whitewash in the T20I series. In every game, the hosts have been super competitive and for the first time on this tour, they failed badly. We’re talking about the 2nd T20 where they were bowled out for 91 and conceded an 88-run defeat as well.
There were multiple contributors to this victory and one of them was Dane Cleaver who scored 78* and helped them get up to their decent score of 179/4. After that, they put up a good bowling performance with Jacob Duffy picking up 2 wickets up front, followed by Ish Sodhi getting 3/21 in his 3 overs. However, Michael Bracewell grabbed all the limelight towards the end of the game…
Michael Bracewell gets hat-trick in first T20I over
Getting a hat-trick in cricket is very rare and to do it at the international level is an amazing feat indeed. However, to do it in your first over of T20I cricket is something else altogether. That’s what Bracewell did as he became the first person to achieve this milestone, picking up three wickets in three balls to wrap up the Irish tail in the 2nd T20I.
The 31-year old all-rounder has only recently started representing New Zealand in the shorter formats of the game and after playing in the ODI series, he made his T20I debut in the first game of this 20-over series. However, he didn’t bowl in that game and bowled his first over in the 2nd T20I at Belfast where he picked up the 8th, 9th and 10th wickets of the Irish innings, in just the 14th over.
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He was thrown the ball in the 14th over and after being hit for a boundary and a single on his first two deliveries, he struck on the third delivery, picking up Mark Adair for 27(22) with Glenn Phillips taking a catch in the deep. On the fourth ball, he picked up Barry McCarthy for 11(8) in the similar fashion, with Phillips picking up the catch once again in the outfield.
Finally, he decided to go for the kill and finish off the Ireland innings, getting the wicket of Craig Young on the fifth ball of the innings. Ish Sodhi picked up the catch at short third man and Bracewell went down in international T20 history, ending with figures of 0.5-0-5-3 on the day. Overall, he became the third New Zealand player to get a T20I hat-trick.
Oram, Southee and now Michael Bracewell are the three Kiwis to have taken hat-tricks in men's T20Is pic.twitter.com/C5g6TOxzXR
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) July 20, 2022
Bracewell is enjoying his time in international cricket right now as he scored a century in a winning cause against Ireland in the first ODI of this series too. However, he’s not the first to get a hat-trick on T20I debut, as Australian pacer Nathan Ellis did so in 2021 as well, against Bangladesh. For similar cricket and other sports news from around the world, stay tuned to ReadScoops.com…
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