Joginder Singh Rao was an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n cricketer

Cricketer

A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....

: a right-arm medium pace bowler who played only five first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 games, all for Services

Services cricket team

The Services cricket team is a domestic cricket team in the Elite Group of the Ranji Trophy, the main domestic competition in India.-Current squad:*Sarbjit Singh*Yashpal Singh *Jasvir Singh*Brijesh Kumar*Vishnu Tiwari*Mumtaaz Qadir...

 in the 1963-64 Ranji Trophy

Ranji Trophy

The Ranji Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between different city and state sides, equivalent to the County Championship in England and the Sheffield Shield in Australia...

, but who is notable for having not only taken a hat-trick

Hat-trick

A hat-trick or hat trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe HH Stephenson's feat of taking three wickets in three balls. A collection was held for Stephenson, and he...

 on debut, but for following that up with two more in the same innings of his second match, one of only two men to have achieved this latter feat (the other being Albert Trott

Albert Trott

Albert Trott was a Test cricketer for both Australia and England. He was named as one of Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1899. He remains the only batsman who has struck a ball over the top of the Lord's pavilion...

) and the only man to have taken three in his first two games.

Born in Gurgaon

Gurgaon

Gurgaon is the second largest city in the Indian state of Haryana. Gurgaon is the industrial and financial center of Haryana. It is located 30 km south of national capital New Delhi, about 10 kilometers from Dwarka Sub City and 268 km south of Chandigarh, the state capital...

, (then Punjab

Punjab (India)

Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...

, now Haryana

Haryana

Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...

), Rao became only the seventh man to achieve the hat-trick on debut when he dismissed three Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir cricket team

The Jammu and Kashmir cricket team is a cricket team based in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is in the Plate Group of the Ranji Trophy. Its home ground is the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar.-References:**navneet roy...

 batsmen as they were bowled out for just 47. Less than a week later, he went one better against Northern Punjab

Northern Punjab cricket team

The Northern Punjab cricket team was an Indian domestic cricket team representing the northern part of the Indian state of Punjab during the time of the British Raj and later the northern part of its Indian successor, following the partition of India. The team first played first-class cricket in...

, when he claimed two hat-tricks in the second innings. His six victims were: Suresh Sharma, Ashok Khanna, Bhupinder Singh; and Rajinder Kale, Ramnath Paul, Bishen Bedi.

Rao played only three more times, as shortly afterwards he was injured in a parachuting

Parachuting

Parachuting, also known as skydiving, is the action of exiting an aircraft and returning to earth with the aid of a parachute. It may or may not involve a certain amount of free-fall, a time during which the parachute has not been deployed and the body gradually accelerates to terminal...

 accident. He took up golf and represented India in France and Pakistan. He redesigned the Army golf course in the Delhi Cantonment and the Dehra Dun golf course. He served in the India-Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 wars in 1965 and 1971, and reached the rank of Major-General in the Indian Army

Indian Army

The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...

.

He died in India thirteen days short of his 56th birthday.

He is survived by his wife Nandita Rao, and two sons, Probir and Rahul.

External links

• Statistical summary from CricketArchive
  CricketArchive
  CricketArchive is a website that aims to provide a comprehensive archive of records relating to the sport of cricket. It claims to be the most comprehensive cricket database on the internet, including scorecards for all matches of first-class cricket , List A cricket , Women's Test cricket and...
  
  
• Hat-Trick on First-Class Debut