Perhaps Moeen Ali shaving his head made some difference (apart from being mistaken for Hashim Amla at a distance). In the first Test of the current series against South Africa he became one of the relatively few (25) to score a fifty and 10 wickets in the same match (Sir Richard Hadlee did so 3 times, while a false knight of the present also appears here):
He also became part of a select group of 40 to have scored both a century and a ten-for in Tests. Only IT Botham, Imran Khan and Shakib Al Hasan achieved this in the same Test.
In the third Test, he finished the match with a hat-trick. This was the 43rd hat-trick in Tests and he became the 39th player to achieve this. H Trumble, TJ Matthews, Wasim Akram and SCB Broad took two hat-tricks apiece. The updated list of hat-tricks:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/136977.html
Finally, he joined a rather short list of 7 players who have scored a century and taken a hat-trick in Tests. Of these, Sohag Gazi is the only one to do so in the same Test-though he vanished from the international scene quite rapidly.
- J Briggs
- Wasim Akram
- Harbhajan Singh
- IK Pathan
- SCJ Broad
- Sohag Gazi
- MM Ali
Of these, 6 of them (i.e. excluding Sohag Gazi) have scored a century, taken a ten-for AND a hat-trick in Tests.
abn397 