Landmark moment: Bangladesh’s Fariha Trisna makes history with a rare T20I hat-trick

The achievement of claiming two hat-tricks in Women’s T20Is has previously been accomplished on two occasions, by Uganda’s off-spinner Concy Aweko and Hong Kong’s left-arm spinner Kary Chan.

However, Trisna's hat-trick in Tuesday's (2 April) match against Australia has made her the first female pacer to achieve this feat.

In the second of the three T20Is against Australia, Trisna picked up the wickets of Ellyse Perry, Sophie Molineux, and Beth Mooney in the final over of the innings, returning impressive figures of 4/19.

Despite her outstanding bowling performance, Trisna's brilliance came a bit late as Australia had already amassed a strong total, setting Bangladesh a challenging target of 162.

In reply, the hosts' batting line-up crumbled as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals as the required run-rate grew. Bangladesh lost the game by 58 runs, after they finished their innings on 103/9.

Ash Gardner and Molineux were the standout bowlers for Australia, taking three wickets each. With this win, Australia secured an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the series.

Trisna admitted she kept it simple when picking up the hat-trick, using the philosphy of bowling at the stumps and letting the batters make a mistake.

"It feels good to get my second hat-trick," she said.

"It is by Allah's grace that I achieved this feat. When I had the chance to take a hat-trick after picking up two wickets, I just wanted to bowl at the stumps. I tried to bowl tight since I was coming back to T20Is after a while. I got a chance to play a match, so my aim was to contribute something for the team."

While thrilled to make a strong contribution to the match, Trisna said the hat-trick would have felt even better had her team won the game and levelled the series.

"It is disappointing that we lost the game. If the team had won, the personal achievement would have felt much better," she said.

"We would have celebrated then. The team comes first. We started well, so there was hope that we can finish properly too. But we tried hard until the end."

Trisna took her first hat-trick in a Women’s Asia Cup game against Malaysia in October 2022. She took the wickets of Winifred Duraisingam, Mas Elysa, and Mahirah Izzati Ismail in the sixth over of the innings.

She is only the second Bangladesh bowler to claim a hat-trick in Women’s T20Is after Fahima Khatun.

The third and final T20I of the ongoing Bangladesh-Australia series will be played at the same venue in Dhaka, on Thursday, 4 April.