Two teams were playing in New Zealand in 1990. One was closing in on the championship and needing a win. The other had nothing much to play for and looked content to see the game out for a draw. The would-be-champions were desperate and wanted to try anything in order to encourage their opponents to make a game of it. With two overs to go and 90 runs to get, Bert Vance stepped up. He proceeded to toss up no-ball full tosses. Lots of them.
The scorers and umpires (and the little fellas clambering all over the old-fashioned score board) were in complete disarray: "no one knew what the hell was going on". It's thought one batsman scored 85 runs in the final two overs. And it ended in arguments as no one was really sure what the score was. Officially it was a draw.
Vance must have bowled something like this - 6 (NB), 4, 6 (NB), 6, 4 (NB), 4(NB), 6, 4(NB), 2, 4 (NB), 4 (NB), 6 (NB), 2, 6 (NB), 4.
Is there someone in the lower reaches of ESCA cricket who could come up with a similar story (except maybe it would be unintentional)?
I know my glorious return to bowling (after "a number" of years) saw me taking a very long opening over and get hit for at least 12. I hit the batsman, bowled at least 2 no balls and 2 wides, got hit for a boundary and ... took a wicket. Off a full toss, naturally.
Or we know of one "Shawbags" who disgusted his regular bowlers by dishing up pies galore - and finished with seven wickets. His last over saw wides and no balls a-plenty (must have been in excess of 15 runs?), with the captain beseeching him to just get through it any which way he could. Of course the over also saw the seventh wicket fall: a huge, skier, straight into the (tiny) hands of our opening bowler.
It's the only time I've seen the ball thrown down with disgust as soon as it was caught.
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I remember a game against Drummond where we got hammered so quickly that we agreed to play a quick 20 over game after the league game was complete. With the natural order of things all awry they sent out one of their middle order biffas as opening bat and we put on Mr Morley with his own spin on "spin".
ReplyDeleteThe agreed rules stipulated that the batsman must retire once he had reached 25. The opening biffa tore into Morley's wrong-uns and chinamen and racked up his quota of runs in the first over much to the hilarity of most involved. Needless to say we lost that game as well.