What is even more remarkable is that the quiet 25-year-old has no pedigree as a goalscorer. His previous best tally for an entire season is nine – and he managed just one in 66 games for Aston Villa before joining Cardiff in January 2007.

So when the final whistle blew after the exhilarating 4-3 win at Sheffield United, you’d naturally have expected Whits to grab the match ball and begin a massive celebration.

Wrong! He just stood there quietly, accepted the congratulations of his teammates.

It was left to striker Jay Bothroyd to collect the ball from behind the goal and defender Anthony Gerrard to go down on one knee and present it to the new king of Bluebirds marksmen.

‘’You wouldn't think he had scored a hat-trick,’’ said manager Dave Jones as his goal-happy players celebrated a victory that lifted them into the automatic promotion places.

‘’He is sitting in the dressing room having a cup of tea. We’ve got a bet on over when he will ask us to sign the match ball. 

‘’Chops (who has scored two hat-tricks this season) was asking as soon as he got off the pitch. Whitts has this demeanour about him but the quality and work ethic he showed out there today was absolutely superb.’’

Whittingham’s sudden arrival as a major goalscorer takes some explaining. Signed for £350,000 when Martin O’Neill found him surplus to requirements at Villa Park, the Nuneaton-born former FA Youth Cup winner has been an in-and-out figure at Cardiff.

Some sections of the crowd think he’s lazy – but Jones insists that’s just the way the left-sided midfielder  appears and that he’s a genuine player of quality.

Before this season, he was best remembered for the brilliant  ‘beat four players on a sixpence’ goal he scored at Middlesbrough in the 2008/09 FA Cup quarter-final. A goal, incidentally, that was scored with the  RIGHT foot.

But this season his strike rate has suddenly soared through the roof – assisted by his new role as penalty taker. He’ s already scored five from the spot and despite his casual attitude, has never looked vaguely like missing one.

But he’s the last man to sing his own praises. ''I'm happy - you can't tell, but I'm happy!’’ he said after the game. ‘’I take a lot of stick from the lads, but I'm just laid back.

"My previous best was nine in a season, and my target was to beat that. I wanted double figures, and I'm there.

"Everybody's raving about the move that led to the fourth goal, but I didn't realise it was that good. Jay (Bothroyd) put the ball across for me and all I had to do was put it in the net. Mind you, it isn't always that easy!"

In a forward line whose haul of 30 goals in 14 league matches is the envy of the Championship, it’s uncanny that last season’s 23-goal top scorer Ross McCormack cannot even get a starting place.

The £5m rated Scotland striker is fit again after a hamstring injury suffered at Blackpool early in the season. And while he played a part as a late substitute in Whittingham’s hat-trick goal on Saturday, his chances of a starting place in the near future are looking decidedly slim.

With Chopra, Whittingham, Bothroyd and Chris Burke causing havoc among opposition defences, it seems a team who have so often flattered to deceive are finally soaring towards a place in the top flight for the first time in 47 years.

But as a long-suffering Bluebirds fan who experienced last season’s final-day disaster, when Jones’s men missed out on the play-offs by a single goal, I wouldn’t bet on it...