Three wickets in the first over: Praful Hinge scripts IPL history

Where this number comes from

When Ishan Kishan handed Praful Hinge the new ball at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, the 24-year-old was making his IPL debut. Six deliveries later, he had rewritten the record books.

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi edged the first ball to slip. Dhruv Jurel played around a full ball on the second. Lhuan-dre Pretorius, promoted to number three, lasted one delivery before nicking off. Three balls, three wickets, three golden ducks. In 4,982 IPL matches across 19 seasons, no bowler had managed this before.

The closest anyone had come was a double-wicket opening over. That had happened 32 times in IPL history, including Bhuvneshwar Kumar for SRH against the same Rajasthan outfit at this very ground in 2024. But three wickets in the first over? Never.

Why it matters now

Hinge's spell did more than create history. His final figures of 4/18 in four overs placed him among the most exclusive club in IPL powerplay bowling.

Only seven other bowlers have taken four or more wickets inside the first six overs of an IPL innings. Ishant Sharma leads the list with 5/12 against Pune Warriors in 2011. The rest read like a who's who of pace bowling: Shoaib Akhtar, Pat Cummins, Mohammed Shami, Deepak Chahar, Ajit Chandila, and Dhawal Kulkarni.

For context, powerplay wickets are gold dust in T20 cricket. The average strike rate in IPL powerplays is 127. Take early wickets, and you force teams into rebuilding mode when they should be launching. RR managed just 161 in their chase, well short of what their batting lineup typically produces.

The numbers tell the story of just how rare this performance was. In our database of 7.3 million deliveries, first-over hat-tricks appear exactly once. That belongs to Hinge now.

In a format where batsmen dominate headlines, Hinge reminded us that swing bowling still wins cricket matches.

— Ravi Krishnan

The tactical element matters too. SRH handed the new ball to a debutant in a crucial match, backing his domestic form over experience. That kind of selection takes nerve. More importantly, it takes data. Hinge had been lethal with the new ball in domestic cricket, and the franchise backed their analysis.

What makes this performance special is the context. This was not a dead rubber or a rain-shortened game. This was Hinge's first IPL match, against a strong RR batting unit, with the pressure of setting the tone for his team's bowling attack.

He delivered the kind of over that changes games, seasons, and careers. The sort that gets replayed in highlight reels for years.

Ravi Krishnan Fantasy Strategy Editor CricketMind AI