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Bowlers are equally cherished and important in a
cricket match. But when the bowlers don’t work and the batsmen are in
hitting prowess then we witness some of the most spectacular runs in the
match. Here we present the some most expensive overs bowled in ODI
cricket.
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MOHAMMAD AMIR, ENGLAND VS. PAKISTAN – LORD’S, AUGUST 26, 2010
On the face of it an over that doesn’t belong in this low company. An
18-year-old finding the edge of one of the form batsmen in world cricket
three times, at nearly 90 mph, seemed to speak only of promise. Shame
about the no ball, we thought at the time, but he’s just a kid, nothing
more than a little too excitable. Within days we had a News of the
Screws front page, flying allegations and a tearful Mikey Holding. What
made it so sad was what a ramshackle and obvious effort at cheating it
was
– he overstepped by about a yard – the confused act of a desperate
young man who could’ve been anything he wanted. |
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CURTLY AMBROSE, AUSTRALIA VS. WEST INDIES – PERTH, FEBRUARY 3, 1997
Utterly inexplicable. Perhaps he hadn’t had his Weetabix, maybe someone
sabotaged his wristbands, but Curtly wasn’t his usual self as he sent
down nine front-foot no balls. The 15-ball over, which couldn’t have
been much fun for Messrs Warne and Bichel at the other end as they were
all on target, ended up taking 12 minutes. Whole innings had taken less
time with this man bowling; seeing one of the best ever fail repeatedly
at such a rudimentary skill just felt a bit wrong, like Caravaggio gone
colour-blind. |
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MOHAMMAD SAMI, BANGLADESH VS. PAKISTAN – COLOMBO, JULY 29, 2004
This over, during an Asia Cup tie, is the longest ever bowled in an ODI.
Sami took 17 balls to finish it, and who can blame him? Faced with the
sight of batting titans Habibul Bashar and Rajin Saleh, whose combined
career average approaches that of a half decent No.8, whose legs
wouldn’t turn to jelly? Sami eventually pulled himself together and
finished the over, but the whole affair gave the Pakistani attack the
shameful appearance of an old jalopy’s spluttering start. |
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STEVE HARMISON, AUSTRALIA VS. ENGLAND – BRISBANE, NOVEMBER 23, 2006
One over in, one ball even, and you already knew how the whole thing was
going to go. It was just a question of whether you sat there with your
hot Bovril and watched it rumble slowly over you, or went to bed ready
to be clobbered with all of it at once in the morning. Abject isn’t the
word – a prize horse had gone lame, and captain Flintoff had no sugar
cubes. Flintoff’s nonchalant snare at second slip, to a ball about as
wide of the mark as a Frankie Boyle joke at a Women’s Institute tea
party, was the abiding image from the series from hell: overs have gone
for more runs, but few have so accurately predicted the tone of a
contest. |
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MICK LEWIS, SOUTH AFRICA VS. AUSTRALIA – JOHANNESBURG, MARCH 12, 2006
Ambling up to defend 434, Australia’s rotund filler Mick Lewis would’ve
felt fairly comfortable. But this was no ordinary match, and Lewis was
no ordinary Australian cricketer, as the world saw when Herschelle Gibbs
carted his seventh over for 18 to set up the mother of all run chases.
In an instant Lewis looked less the merry state cricket journeyman
enjoying a late-career Indian summer, and more the schlubby hero of a
fish-out-of-water comedy, wondering why he’d listened to Rob Schneider.
He had absolutely no idea what to do, but somehow he had to continue
pretending to be an international cricketer for another two hours;
suffice to say he didn’t get the girl.
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32 runs – CM Bandara (Sri Lanka vs Pakistan)
Dissimilar to last time, this time it was a Sri Lankan at the less than
desirable end. At the point when minimal known leg spinner CM Bandara
came to ball to hard hitting Shahid Afridi, all he would have trusted is
a tranquil over to spare his face. Anyway, Afridi, as he plays was in no
leniency mode as he plunged the adolescent bowler for 32 runs in an over
which ran started with 2 limits took after by 4 progressive humongous
sixes (4,4,6,,6,6,6). Shockingly, Bandara profession was given the ax as
it finished being his last competition for the Lankans.
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RP SINGH, ENGLAND VS. INDIA – THE OVAL, AUGUST 18, 2011
Beefy called it spot-on when he termed this the worst first over of a
Test match he’d ever seen. It really was that bad. A replacement for the
injured Zaheer Khan in the same way as Paul Rodgers was a replacement
for Freddie Mercury; Singh seemed a fraction of a fast bowler on this
morning at The Oval. He gently wafted five out of six balls down the leg
side with a bored, trancelike lack of intensity only partially explained
by the fact he hadn’t bowled a first-class delivery in anger for seven
months. Made Darren Sammy look like Wes Hall.
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35 runs – Robin Peterson (South Africa vs Sri Lanka)
They say that spinners are simple pickings in the power play overs. Take
a stab at clarifying that to South African captain Graeme Smith. He gave
the ball to spinner Robin Peterson planning to confound the batsman with
his shrewd turn of bowlers yet much to he's dismay that unstable
all-rounder Thisara Perera was in such radiant touch that everything
without exception would have taken off his bat in that over. Perera hit
5 sixes and a limit in that over that went 6, wide, 6, 6,6,6,4. No big
surprise, Peterson wasn't asked to bowl any more in the match.
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