Why is a hatrick called a hatrick? (i.e. when one player scores 3 goals in a match)
…that’s all.
thanks.
It’s originally from the game of cricket. A bowler who took 3 wickets with consecutive balls (got 3 batsmen out) was entitled to receive a hat to commemorate the feat.
The Word Detective says it’s because players of Cricket got a hat when they scored three wickets (i.e. got someone out) in a row.
It’s spelt “Hat Trick”, by the way.
This has been asked before, and the cricket fans among you may be surprised to discover its use apparently extends to (ice) hockey too. My understanding of the term accords with yours – that a silk top hat was traditionally given in the olden days as a prize for a bowler taking three wickets in three balls.
The use of the term in football was borrowed from cricket, and I’ve been told that in the '20s and '30s the scorer had to get three in a row too (i.e. with no other goals being scored in between) for people to call that a hat trick – not just any three goals by the same player as is used these days.
Here are a couple of old threads discussing hat tricks:
Hat trick hats?
Hat tricks
Possible UL here, but I have heard it reported that the hockey “hat trick” started in Montreal when a local men’s wear store near the Montreal Forum (as it then was) would give a hat to any player on the Canadiens (or maybe it was Les Habs) who scored three goals.
While I can’t provide a specific cite, a copy of Wisden I was reading in high school (but not necessarily a current edition - all I’ll say is that it must have been pre-'93) stated that the tradition was started by the Yorkshire CC. It gave a year, but I can’t remember which one.
BTW, a cricketing hat-trick is exceedingly rare. At international level it’s only occurred 30 times in 125 years - and eight of those were in the last four years.
Is it still ‘officially’ three consecutive balls? Or just in the same over?
It has to be three consecutive balls from the same bowler. Of course this might extend over three (or more!) overs e.g. Last two balls get wickets. Then has an over (or more) off and then first ball back gets a wicket.
That’s technically correct, Ell, but what kind of captain would take a guy off when he’s on a hat trick? Please don’t say Nasser Hussain ;).
It’s looking grim again in Perth.
yep, he’s a crappy captain, but his new baby is so cute
(joel hussein, 2 weeks old, and born in perth…therefore eligible to play for aus!)
IIRC, no bowler can bowl two consecutive overs, so if he took two wickets with the last two balls of one over, he would have to have at least one over off before resuming.
What is the etymological link between “trick” and “three”?
I assume they both use the same root “tri-” meaning three: is that Latin? None of the online dictionaries I checked had “three” under their definitions of “trick”…
Or does it simply mean that getting three balls in a row is a good ‘trick’ or ‘knack’ (whereas two-in-a-row could be more easily put down to luck)?
None. From Merriam-Webster:
Cheers Floater - I read an answer to this question this morning in a Daily Mail ‘Notes & Queries’ collection, and that implied that ‘trick’ referred to ‘three’, but it didn’t supply any sources for it.
True, but not relevant. As in Ell’s scenario if a bowler took three wickets with three balls he bowled consecutively that would be a hat trick irrespective of any other bowling that took place in between. I’ve been searching for a cite for an occasion when a “broken” hat trick was achieved, but no luck so far.
Here’s an interesting summary of the hat trick in cricket (and it confirms the story that the first one happened in Yorkshire).
A hat was the award for performing the trick. There has been some similar confusion in the past over the term “try” in rugby, which was once worth three points. That has nothing to do with the number three either.
Still no luck in finding a “broken” hat trick, but this site lists a few surprising ones by Wawickshire batsmen. The note at the foot of the page reports that J.D. Bannister took three wickets in three balls spread over two different matches - one playing for Warwicks and one for Cambridge University. I assume the guy at the top of the page must be a namesake, otherwise he’d be pretty old.
Nuwan Zoysa took three wickets with his first three balls in test cricket (Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe, Nov '99). Here’s a list of test hat tricks.
This site gives some trivia about hat tricks in football matches.
Not sure what you mean by a “broken” hat-trick, but in this test Merv Hughes got one in three different overs. Last ball of one over, first ball of the next which ended the innings and the first ball of the Windies’ second innings.
I know it’s not a term defined in the laws, but I’d pretty much think it difficult to find anyone who would agree that a hat-trick would be able to be spread across games.
Thanks BigNik, Merv’s effort fits the description of what I was looking for. There must be other cases, but I haven’t got a full set of Wisden to hand.
What BigNik said.
Curiously enough, the only other instance of a hat trick over two innings of the same match was achieved by Courtney Walsh (WI) in the first Test of the same series.
A slightly more up-to-date listing of cricket test hat tricks is this one . There have been four since Zoysa’s effort.
Isn’t it weird that the frequency of hat tricks in Tests should be increasing? Four in the first twenty years of test cricket, only one between 1961 and 1988, but four in 1999 alone and four more since then. It can’t all be due to the greater number of matches being played nowadays.
And what price Brett Lee getting the next one? 