India tour of Pakistan 2006, for a 3-match test series led by Rahul Dravid (India Captain) and Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pakistan Captain). The first two test matches ended up with no result. The decider of the series was at National Stadium, Karachi. Both the teams were looking to win the final test match before the 5-match ODI fixtures (which team India later won 4-1 easily). Both teams made few changes in their respective sides where team India was playing one more batsman, Pakistan too added two more batsman Imran Farhat and Faisal Iqbal who replaced Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shoaib Malik.
Team India captain Rahul Dravid won the toss and decided to bowl first on the green surface of Karachi. Captain Irfan Pathan decided to open the Indian bowling instead of Zaheer Khan and it looked like the left-arm fast bowler was waiting for this before he pushed the opposition at the backfoot with his top-notch swing bowling. The first three balls were the glimpse of unplayable swing in the match as the batsman was in difficulty to play shots. But in the next three balls this southpaw destroyed the Pakistan top-order and let the world take a notice about the class of his calibre. The fourth ball of first over pitched up in the middle before Salman Butt edged at the slip to Rahul Dravid, Younis Khan (one of the best test batsman of Pakistan) to face the next ball and Younis Khan was in the best phase of his career when he joined the crease and looked to provide the resistance after the early blow by Irfan Pathan.
But Irfan Pathan pitched the ball right up there in the middle before it came in towards Younis Khan and he completely missed that and hit straight into his pads. Before Irfan Pathan and team India appealed and Simon Taufel without any doubts raised his finger and left the Pakistan score 0/2. The Pakistan greatest test batsman Mohammad Yosuf Walked in to face the hat trick ball. But Irfan Pathan produced the best ball of his over to stunned the Pakistan team with his complete in-swinger to Mohammad Yosuf to complete his hat trick (Pathan destroyed the defense of Yosuf and ripped off his stumps). Pakistan was 0/3 and Irfan Pathan became the second Indian bowler in the history to achieve this feat after Harbhjan Singh (who was the first ever Indian bowler to achieve this feat against Australia at the famous Eden Garden, Kolkata Test to end the unbeaten 16 test victories streak of Steve Waugh).
Before Pakistan, recovered from the damage of Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan and RP Singh further provided more dents to Pakistan line-up and left the scoreboard 39/6. But Pakistan wicket-keeper batsman Kamran Akmal alongside lower order batsman fought back to take the scoreboard to 245 runs in the first innings which included a fine century of Kamran Akmal and handy knocks of other batsmen. Team India began their first innings and they only managed to score 238 runs in the first innings. The hosts with the lead of 7 runs in the first innings went onto scored 599 runs in the second innings before declaring the innings and given the target of 606 runs to team India. Like the first innings, Mohammad Asif produced another spell of his swing bowling to put team India into the shambles as team India only managed to score 265 runs in the second innings before they lost the match by 341 runs and series by 1-0. But Irfan Pathan hattrick was the one memory for visitors to remember for a long time.
Here is that hat trick of Irfan Pathan against Pakistan in 2006 at Karachi
