INSIDE EDGE – SIX OF THE BEST
Edwin Seeraj
Edwin Seeraj

With Edwin Seeraj
WHEN Carlos Braithwaite struck huge sixes against England’s Ben Stokes off the first four balls of the last over of the recent World T20 final, it understandably brought back memories of the other men who plundered sixes in an over in first-class and limited-overs cricket.India’s Ravi Shastri and Yuvraj Singh together with South African’s Herschelle Gibbs have all hit their way into the record books, but the man that led the way was the West Indian Sir Gary Sobers

Gary Sobers-Six balls , six sixes
Gary Sobers-Six balls , six sixes

who clobbered six super sixes for Nottinghamshire against Somerset in 1968.
Inside Edge shares a part of ‘Six of the Best’-one of the chapters of Sobers’s autobiography-in which he gave details of his involvement in English county cricket, his six-hitting and much more.
“I would have loved to go into county cricket before 1968, but I wasn’t going to spend two years qualifying and not playing for my country. If that rule had not applied, I would have played county cricket much earlier.
“I was playing for Norton in the Staffordshire league when the rule was changed and immediately county secretaries from several clubs came creeping round the back of the pavilion after games to inform me that the laws were going to be altered next season and that they would like me to play for them.
“The move to county cricket came a little later in my career than I would have liked. I was 31 and had played 14 solid years of cricket around the world, but the offer was a good one-5000 Pounds Sterling per season with accommodation, tickets home to Barbados and a car.
“Nottingham, Trent Bridge, suited me nicely because whenever I had played there I had found it to be a true batting wicket and I had scored a couple of double-centuries there for the West Indies.

Malcolm Nash, the bowler hit for six sixes by Garfield Sobers
Malcolm Nash, the bowler hit for six sixes by Garfield Sobers

“I was appointed captain, taking over from Norman Hill and, it was said, much to the disappointment of Brian Bolus who apparently expected the job. If he did, he never showed it and he was a fine example to everyone at the club.
“The season started extremely well and when we went to play Glamorgan at Swansea at the end of August, we were poised to finish fourth in the standings (from the bottom three for 10 of the last 11 seasons) if we beat them.
“The Welsh side were well placed and if they defeated us, they stood every chance of winning the title. So the scene was set with everything to play for, not to mention several bottles of champagne.
“I went in when the score was about 300 for 5 and I played a few overs, looked up at the scoreboard and realised that we needed a few quick runs to get Glamorgan in if we were to try to bowl them out for a victory.
“The wicket, as usual, aided the spinners on the last day, but Bolus propped up the innings with a big hundred. With an hour to play I was on 40 and thought I should go for it and as a result, I became the first batsman in first-class cricket to hit six successive sixes in a six-ball over.
“The unlucky bowler was Malcolm Nash, a 23-year-old Welshman who had opened the bowling with his medium-paced deliveries and was now bowling his left-arm over-the-wicket spin.
“As he prepared to bowl, I remembered the two versions of how to go about the proposed assault. Sir Everton Weekes used to tell me that if I kept the ball on the ground, no one could catch me, while Sir Learie Constantine preferred the alternative, saying if you hit it up in the air and out of the ground no one could catch it anyway.
“Obviously, if you want quick runs you have to make sure that you hit it over the boundary, but at this stage there were no thoughts of six sixes, just runs, and I was not even bothered whether I was out or not-all I was interested in was quick runs and a declaration.
“There was a fairly small boundary on the right-hand Gorse Lane side of the ground which, with Malcolm being a left-arm spinner who was not turning the ball a great deal, presented a perfect target.
“I tucked the first two over that short boundary without a problem and when he bowled the third one a little wider I dispatched it over wide mid-on. The fourth delivery I struck way over the bowler’s head and into the stand and it was only then that I even contemplated going for the six sixes.
“The crowd, although partisan Welsh, were caught up in the excitement and were chanting ‘six, six, six’ and then I thought that I should give it a go for there was nothing to lose.
“The fifth ball was wide of the off stump and although I connected well I didn’t middle it and there was a fielder Roger Davis, underneath it.
“He was furiously back-pedalling all the time and as he caught it everything went over the boundary. I started walking but the crowd shouted to me, “ You’re not out, get back, get back” and these were the Welsh fans but they didn’t want me to go….they were obviously enjoying themselves.
“The rules had recently been changed and I wasn’t exactly sure where I stood. I stopped as the umpires converged and conferred and after a short while a six was signalled.
“The crowd hollered for murder and they and I began to think seriously about the possibility of being the first batsman in history to hit six sixes off an over in a first-class match.
“As Tony Lewis, the Glamorgan skipper, spread his fielders all round the boundary with a preponderance on the leg side, all sorts of things were going through my mind.
“A no-ball or a wide would spoil it and make it difficult, because that would require a seventh ball while Nash would certainly not fancy becoming the first bowler to be on the wrong end of this particular record.
“I felt sure that he would try to deceive me; being a former fast bowler, he would run up as if to bowl another off-break and then bowl a straight, faster ball.
“Unfortunately for him, he obviously didn’t realise that we were both thinking along the same lines, and he pitched his quicker ball a little short. I was seeing it as big as a football by this time and I had one eye on the ball and the other on that short boundary.
“Even if I had a top-edge it would have gone for six, but I caught it right in the middle of the bat and it not only cleared the boundary, but went over the stand as well, rolling down the hill towards Swansea town centre.
“When I hit the sixth six, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s television commentator Wilf Wooller shouted, “it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone over the houses, over the buses, it’s gone to the Guildhall, clean into Swansea.”
“A young man found the ball, battered and torn, still rolling down the street and he dutifully returned it to Wilf the next day. It was mounted and sent to the Nottinghamshire County Cricket Museum.
“I might have gone on for the quickest hundred, but that wasn’t in the script and I quickly declared at the end of the over. We bowled them out and went on to claim our fourth place, having played in all but two matches that season, sending down 773 overs taking 83 wickets and scoring a few runs.
“The television waited for our comments until the end of the day’s play and as Nash and I walked across the field from the dressing rooms towards the interview room together, out of the corner of his eye, I caught him smiling to himself and I politely asked him what he was smiling about.
“I want you to understand that I’m with you,’ he replied. “I don’t mind that I’m at the wrong end, I’m in the record books with you.”
“Nash has been regularly invited to sportsmen nights to talk about the six sixes from his perspective. Unfortunately, we had no nights or dinners like that in the West Indies, so Nash probably had the last laugh on me by making more money out of my record than I did!
“But when I see him now and tell him that he owes me some of that money, he just laughs.”

SHARE THIS ARTICLE :
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All our printed editions are available online
emblem3
Subscribe to the Guyana Chronicle.
Sign up to receive news and updates.
We respect your privacy.