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| Sunday, 6 November 2005 |
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Bizarre bowling feats never to be forgotten by A. C. De Silva Batting is no doubt the eye-catching part of cricket, be at Test level or elsewhere. However, there have been several instances where bowlers too held the spotlight, in tests and outside. There is one bowler who held centre-stage when he was playing Test cricket and Jim Laker - the off-break bowler of England will live long in the memory of old staggers of the game. The record number of wickets to fall to one bowler in any first-class match is 19 and that stands to the credit Jim Laker against Australia at Old Trafford, Manchester in the Test played on July 27, 28, 30 and 31 in 1956. The Yorkshire-born Surrey off-break bowler took 9 for 37 in 16.4 overs in the first innings and 10 for 53 in 51.2 overs in the second. Ten of his wickets were caught (including five by Alan Oakman at short leg), five bowled, three lbw and one stumped - all 19 wickets were taken from the stratford End, although laker frequently switched ends with Tony Lock. Perhaps the most outstanding match statistic was Lock's bowling analysis. In 69 overs on a pitch favouring spin bowlers, the Surrey left-arm bowler, then in his heyday, took only one wicket for 106 runs. Later stands head and shoulders above the rest as no other bowler has taken more than 17 wickets in any first-class match. It looks very unlikely that Laker's record will ever be broken in Test cricket, however there have been instances of great feats by bowlers in lower grades of cricket that have been recorded. 20 wkts in match While it must be satisfying to capture all ten wickets in an innings, how much sweeter by far is it to take all 20 wickets in a match. No fewer than six instances of this remarkable feat have been recorded. With the passage of time, a date of one of the feats established - Martin's Massacre' - the match at Common Down, Stockbridge, when a homeside bowler called Martin took all 20 wickets of the opposing side - Abbot's Ann, for a little over four runs apiece. The other feats in date order: 1881-82: F. R. Spefforth in Australia, in an up-country match to which he is said to have ridden 400 miles in order to take part. 1887: J. Bryant for Erskine Vs Deaf Mutes in Melbourne. All were clean-bowled. 1932: Y. S. Ramaswamy for Mariamallappa High School Vs Wesleyan High School, Bangalore, bowling right-arm leg-breaks and googlis for a match analysis of 20 for 31 including a hat-trick. 1935: W. Doig for Great Fremantle in a match at Perth, western Australia; he took 10 for 15 in the first innings and 10 for 6 in the second innings. 1950: James Pothecary, aged 16 playing for Seapoint Vs Landsdowne, Cape Town- his match analysis was 20 for 54. Though the above have got eye-catching feats, the Superb bowling of England's Jim Laker in that memorable Test against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956 - stands head and shoulders above all. Double hand bowling Not only on beaches and in gardens can bowlers be seen tossing up deliveries with either hand. In 1954, playing for Pakistan Vs Somerset at Taunton, the usually right-armed Hanif Mohammad decided to try each arm in the same over and took a wicket with a left-arm delivery. In 1872, in the match between Harrow School and Butterflies, the latter's W. Yardley bowled alternately with his right and left arm, and took five wickets. William Frederick Light (1880-1930) made s habit of it. He was the professional at Exeter and Devon for some 20 years, and opened the bowling with fast-medium left arm. If necessary, he would later switch to slow right arm. Before joining Exeter and Devon he played 12 matches for Hampshire and so may have deployed the same repertoire in the first-class game. Shortest Spell According to some newspaper reports, S. M. H. Kirmani's offering in the fifth Test between India and West Indies in 1983 was not only brief but in a technical sense non-existent. With West Indies needing one run for victory, the Indian wicketkeeper came on and bowled a no-ball. The moving finger in the scorebox was said to have dropped its pencil at that juncture and scratched its puzzled head. What to write? Did Kirmani bowl or didn't he? It later emerged that Kirmani had delivered one legal ball before the no-ball, and so the scorers in fact had been less confused than the journalists. Six byes! Charles Kortright, playing at Wallingford, once bowled a ball that rose so steeply that it passed over the batsman and the wicketkeeper and cleared the boundary without bouncing. He thus registered the only incidence of six byes in the history of the game. Pulled-up When 'Punter' Humphreys played in a trial at Tonbridge he bowled a no-ball and was immediately sent off by Lord Harris. Later his lordship explained: 'I did that for your own good, Humphareys.' A fast bowler can be excused a no-ball occasionally, but not a slow bowler like you.' Most runs in one innings According to available records, the most runs conceded by a bowler in one Test innings is 298 by 'Chuck' Fleetwood-Smith of Australia during England's record total of 903 for 7 wickets declared at the Oval in August 1938. A left-arm back-of-the-hand spin bowler whose natural ball was an off-break, Fleetwood-Smith sent down 87 overs in that innings for just one wicket. Only one English bowler has conceded over 200 runs in a Test innings and he was a Scotsman; fortunately Ian Pebbles was also an extremely humorous man. He had the compensation of taking six wickets in the course of his 71 overs, while contributing 204 runs towards Australia's total of 695 (Bradman 232) at the Oval in August 1930. M. L. C. Fernando writes in to say that the Highest scorer in a Test match is England's Graham Gooch who made 330 in the first innings and followed it up with 123 in the second innings against India at Lord's in 1990. Then about fielding, it has been pointed out that three other fielders Stephen Fleming of New Zealand, Sri Lanka's Hashan Tillekeratne and Matthew Hayden of Australia also held seven catches in a match. |
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