KBC asks a ₹1 crore cricket question about a unique hat-trick feat

A popular Indian television show, Kaun Banega Crorepati, featured a ₹1 crore question on August 21, 2026 that reached into one of the most obscure corners of Test cricket history. Contestants were asked to name the cricketer who was dismissed twice across two innings of a single Test, each time falling to the same bowler completing a hat-trick.

The four options placed before the contestant were Sid Emery, Tommy Ward, Claude Jennings, and Bill Whitty. The correct answer is Tommy Ward, the South African wicketkeeper whose name is permanently attached to a record that has never been equalled in over a century of Test cricket.

This was the tricky question that was asked:

What did Jimmy Matthews achieve in that 1912 Test match?

Australian bowler Jimmy Matthews produced a feat at Old Trafford in 1912 that remains unique in Test cricket. Facing South Africa, Matthews completed a hat-trick in the first innings and then repeated the achievement in the second innings of the very same match. No bowler in the history of Test cricket has managed two hat-tricks within a single game before or since.

Ward's connection to this record goes beyond simply being a victim. According to various reports, he was the batsman dismissed on each occasion when Matthews completed his hat-trick, meaning Ward was the final wicket in both sequences. That places him at the centre of a record that belongs equally to bowler and batsman. The Matthews double hat-trick at Old Trafford stands as one of the most celebrated statistical curiosities in the sport, and Ward's presence in both dismissals gives the record an additional dimension that the KBC question was designed to test.

It is also worth noting that hat-tricks spread across two innings are not entirely without precedent in cricket history. Records state that William Clarke achieved a hat-trick spanning two innings in 1844, dismissing Kent batsman John Fagge twice within that sequence. However, Matthews remains the only bowler to have completed two separate and complete hat-tricks within a single Test match, making his 1912 performance a genuinely isolated entry in the record books.

Who were the other answer options and why does this question matter?

The three alternative options, Sid Emery, Claude Jennings, and Bill Whitty, are not the cricketers who were dismissed twice across two innings while a bowler completed hat-tricks. Whether these names belong to real cricketers from the same era or were constructed as distractors for the question has not been confirmed from available evidence.

KBC routinely draws on sporting knowledge at its higher prize levels, and the Matthews and Ward episode from 1912 is precisely the kind of detail that demands genuine historical awareness rather than general cricket familiarity.