By Arjun 
Widely regarded as one of the better achievements in cricket, a hat-trick is something that most cricketers will remember for the rest of their lives. And when you do that just months after undergoing a heart procedure, it makes it all the more amazing for Amanda-Jade Wellington.
Australian leg-spinner recently revealed that she had been living with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), a condition that has been affecting her all her life. SVT results in rapid periods of abnormal heart rhythm that is caused by wrong signals being passed in the electrical system of the heart. While her takes on evaluations were never more kinetic than a shoulder shrug from her emotive personality, the condition was quietly intertwined with who she had been both on and off the field.
Wellington recently had a procedure called cardiac ablation, where doctors went in and tried to fix the electrical pathways that were causing the irregular heart beat earlier this year. The procedure requires a catheter to be threaded from a vein into the heart and then either heat or cold is delivered through that tube to destroy tissue causing the issue.
The recovery was quick – but it took getting used to! Wellington went public with details of the operation in March, and just weeks later was back training in Southampton for Hampshire’s domestic campaign. She was not only getting her match fitness back, she was also adjusting to something invisible – to know what a normal heartbeat actually felt like.
This determination proved to be beneficial as she began producing impressive displays in the field. Wellington entered the record books as she took a career-best five-wicket haul with her first professional hat-trick in a five wicket blast win over Essex in the Vitality Blast. It was a revelation – proof of her endurance but also proof of her mettle.
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Her role for Hampshire in all formats remains as important as ever. Wellington took 11 wickets in just eight games at great cost with the ball in the One Day Cup. The influence she has had within Hampshire’s strong T20 challenge as summer unfolds has also been equally precious.
It is a story of Wellington that does not just include statistics and match-winning spells. It reflects adjusting to a better health integrated into almost everything but still chasing and achieving excellence at the highest rung. Competing with an irregular heartbeat for years, she is ready to move on – and show that often the biggest victories in life are not won on the field before they are celebrated there.