This past week saw Iain Hume net his first hat-trick of Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 after scoring all of Kerala Blasters FC’s goals in their 3-1 win over Delhi Dynamos FC at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi. Hume’s hat-trick was the fourth of the season and the sixteenth hat-trick overall since the inception of the league in 2014.

Hero ISL 2015 witnessed the maximum number of hat-tricks (8), while there was only once that an individual found the back of the net thrice in the same game in the inaugural season as Mumbai City FC’s Andre Moritz created history by becoming the first player to do so. Last season saw three hat-tricks, one less than this edition so far, with almost half the campaign remaining.

Hume has been one the faces of the Hero ISL ever since its start and hence it should come as no surprise that he tops the charts for most number of hat-tricks by a player (3). The Canadian striker netted his first ever hat-trick against Mumbai in Hero ISL 2015 and scored his second against FC Pune City in the very same season. His most recent treble strike in a match came for Kerala against Delhi and made him the leading hat-trick scorer in league history.

As far as countries go, Brazil boast the maximum number of hat-tricks in the league based on nationality. After Moritz scored for Mumbai in 2014, striker Reinaldo netted thrice in a game for Goa the following year, while the talismanic Marcelinho scored a hat-trick for Delhi Dynamos last season and another for FC Pune City in the ongoing campaign. Marcelinho, in fact, is one of just two players who have netted hat-tricks for two different Hero ISL clubs. The other being Dudu Omagbemi, who scored thrice in a game for FC Goa in Hero ISL 2015 and Chennaiyin FC the following season.

The team with the most hat-tricks in league history is Goa, who thanks to Ferran Corominas’ brilliance earlier in the season, now have five hat-tricks to their name. Prior to Corominas’ back-to-back hat-tricks this campaign, which also featured the fastest hat-trick in league history at just seven minutes, Goa had three hat-tricks to their name. Reinaldo and Dudu have already been mentioned but young Thongkhosiem Haokip also got in on the action by netting thrice in Goa’s 7-0 trouncing of Mumbai three years back.

Interestingly, it was the same game which saw Dudu net his hat-trick for the Gaurs, making it the only match in the Hero ISL to have seen two hat-trick scorers. Second in terms of hat-tricks by teams are Chennaiyin and Mumbai. Both sides have three hat-ticks in league history with Stiven Mendoza’s two in Chennai’s title winning season as well as Dudu’s hat-trick for them last season accounting for the southerners’ tally.

Mumbai, meanwhile, have scored one hat-trick in each of the past three seasons and will be looking for a fourth before the end of this campaign to keep that record intact. As already mentioned Moritz scored for them in the first season, whereas Sunil Chhetri netted thrice for them in a game in the second edition to become the first domestic hat-trick scorer in the league. Last season saw Diego Forlan net a hat-trick for the Islanders as Mumbai beat Kerala 5-0 at home.