Farhan Ahmed, younger brother of England’s leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, came close to setting a world record but narrowly missed out.
At just 17, Farhan has been making waves with the ball, achieving one milestone after another. Last year, he grabbed attention by taking 10 wickets in a first-class match. Now, he has savored his first hat-trick in T20 cricket.
On Friday, playing for Nottinghamshire against Lancashire in England’s domestic Vitality Blast T20 competition, Farhan took three wickets in three consecutive balls. He finished with figures of 5 wickets for 25 runs in 4 overs as an off-spinner.
At Trent Bridge, he dismissed Luke Wood, Tom Aspinwall, and Mitchell Stanley with the last three balls of Lancashire’s innings to complete his hat-trick and celebrate the rare feat.
At 17 years and 147 days old, Farhan became the second youngest player to take a hat-trick in men’s T20 cricket and the eighth youngest to claim a five-wicket haul in this format.
The youngest to record a T20 hat-trick is George Sesse, a pacer from Sierra Leone, who achieved the feat at 17 years and 3 days old during an international T20 against Botswana in December 2023 — also taking three wickets with the last three balls of the innings.
Among players from ICC full member nations, only Pakistan’s pacer Mohammad Hasnain has taken a T20 international hat-trick under the age of 20. He did so at 19 years and 183 days old in October 2019 during a match against Sri Lanka in Lahore, taking a hat-trick over two overs.
Besides Farhan and Sesse, only one other player has taken a hat-trick before turning 18: Afghanistan’s opening batsman Ibrahim Zadran, who achieved it at 17 years and 304 days during a domestic T20 match in the 2019-20 season.
This hat-trick came in only Farhan’s sixth T20 match, and it was his first time taking five wickets in this format. The Vitality Blast also marked his debut in 20-over cricket.
Before this match, Farhan had taken only three wickets in his first five games. In fact, he went wicketless in his previous two matches, bowling economically but without breakthroughs. This time, he made a spectacular comeback.
This was Nottinghamshire’s final match of the tournament. Despite bowling Lancashire out for 126 and winning by 4 wickets, Nottinghamshire failed to qualify for the quarter-finals.
Farhan, 20 years old, has already played all three formats for England and is the younger brother of leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed. Last year, during his debut County Championship match, he took 10 wickets, breaking a record over 150 years old.
At 16 years and 189 days, Farhan became the youngest player to take 10 wickets in a first-class match on English soil, surpassing the legendary W.G. Grace, who held the record at 16 years and 339 days.
In that Trent Bridge match, Farhan set two more records: becoming Nottinghamshire’s youngest-ever first-class player and the youngest to take five or more wickets in an innings in a first-class match in England, claiming 7 wickets in the first innings.
Now, with this T20 hat-trick, Farhan continues his remarkable rise. Given his rapid progress, it may not be long before he earns a spot in the national team.
