You would have to be something special to keep Ravichandran Ashwin out of the side and on Thursday night Kuldeep Yadav proved beyond any doubt that he is just that and more. The left-arm wrist spinner became the third Indian bowler to claim a hat-trick in one-day internationals. On the receiving end was a hapless Australian team, all at sea against the guile and variety of the young chinaman bowler. India went on to comfortably beat Australia by 50 runs in the 2nd ODI to take a 2-0 lead in the 5-match series. Twitter was abuzz following Kuldeep's heroic performance with former and current Indian cricketers hailing the birth of a new star.
From Sachin Tendulkar to Harbhajan Singh, Kuldeep was showered with high praise.
The 22-year-old dismissed Matthew Wade (2), Ashton Agar (duck) and Pat Cummins (duck) to bag his maiden ODI hat-trick.
Before Kuldeep, only former India pacer Chetan Sharma and the 1983 World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev had achieved this milestone.
The Australian batsmen failed to pick him up in Chennai and it was no different tonight.
His best ball without a doubt was the hat-trick ball. The young spinners showed remarkable calm to bowl the wrong one that took a thick edge of Cummins' bat before landing into the hands of MS Dhoni.
Chetan Sharma, the first Indian to take a hat-trick, achieved the feat against New Zealand in 1987, while Kapil did it against Sri Lanka in 1991.