Australia continued to suffer at the hands of Rangana Herath as he became the oldest bowler in the history of Test cricket. Herath achieved the feat on Day 2 of the second Test between Sri Lanka and Australia at the Galle International Stadium on Friday.
The 38-year-old left-arm spinner had previously taken nine wickets in the first test at Pallekele, registering his sixth five-for in the fourth innings of a Test match, only behind Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne with seven each.
Herath took the wickets of Adam Voges, Peter Nevill and Mitchell Starc off the last three balls of the 25th over of Australia’s first innings and became the second Sri Lankan after Nuwan Zoysa to take a hat-trick. The visitors were skittled out for a paltry 106 in response to Sri Lanka’s first innings total of 281.
A total of 11 wickets fell in the morning session at Galle as only 83 runs were scored. At lunch, Sri Lanka were 31/3, having lost Kaushal Silva, Dimuth Karunaratne and the hero of the first test Kusal Mendis. Starc took two of the three wickets to fall just before lunch.
Herath, who finished with figures of 4/35, became only the second left-arm orthodox bowler to take a hat-trick after England’s Johnny Briggs had done it against Australia at Sydney in 1892.
Overall, Herath’s was the 42nd hat-trick in tests and the first since Stuart Broad against Sri Lanka at Headingley in Leeds in June 2014. Sri Lanka lead the three-Test series 1-0.