The definition of the over-boundary hit changed in 1910. Until then, batters would get only four for clearing the boundary in England and five in Australia. For six runs, they had to hit the ball out of the ground.
The lure of the six, however, has enticed champions from long before that. Here are some of the most iconic shots:
Thornton’s biggest hit
In the 1870s and 1880s, CI Thornton hit some of the most enormous sixes cricket has known, often without wearing gloves or pads. Some of his shots have been estimated at around 160 yards (about 146 metres) — though these were points where the ball hit the soil.
In 1886, Thornton hit 13 sixes in two days in Scarborough. One of them went through an open window on the second floor of a four-storeyed house outside the ground. Another ball then cleared the entire building and landed in the garden.
“When the height and distance are taken into account, I very much question whether a bigger hit has ever been made,” wrote a resident of the building to The Manchester Guardian.
The biggest six?
A ferocious hitter, Jimmy Sinclair was the first of South Africa’s long lineage of Test all-rounders, and hit their first three Test hundreds.
In Jacques Kallis and 12 Other Great South African All-Rounders (2013), Ali Bacher and David Willliams wrote: “According to legend, Sinclair hit the longest six in history — into a railway wagon adjoining Johannesburg’s Old Wanderers stadium, and the ball was found at the train’s destination in Cape Town, some 1,600km away.”
Whether or not you want to believe this is up to you.
Out of Lord’s
Albert Trott used a three-pound bat in an era when two and a half was considered very heavy. In 1899, against the touring Australians, Trott lofted Monty Noble straight out of Lord’s.
“The next thing I saw was the ball looking like a pea in the air,” Trott later said in an interview. This remains the only known occasion of a batter hitting the ball out of Lord’s.
Time travel
Playing for Surrey, Jack Hobbs literally stopped time at Bradford in 1914. He hit a very straight shot off Yorkshireman Alonzo Drake, and the ball smashed the glass of the pavilion clock.
In Hirst and Rhodes (1959), AA Thomson wrote that it changed the position of the hour hand. In Hit For Six (1960), Gerald Brodribb wrote that the minute hand fell, changing four o’clock to half-past four.
Whatever it was, the clock was not repaired until the end of World War I.
Off the back foot
For the touring West Indians against Middlesex at Lord’s in 1928, Learie Constantine hit a six over cover point off the back foot.
That already sounds incredible enough, but there was more: the ball “ricocheted off the Old Father Time weather vane on the roof of the North Stand.”
Crossing a river
At Edgbaston on India’s England tour of 1932, CK Nayudu hit a ball from Hal Jarrett over square leg, outside the stadium, across the adjacent River Rea.
The county boundaries have been redrawn since. Had he hit the same shot today, Nayudu would have sent the ball from Warwickshire to Worcestershire.
The compensation
In 1947, one Bessie Stone was standing at her garden head when she was hit by a six from the nearby Cheetham Cricket Ground. She sued the club, and won £104 19 shilling 6 pence in damages and £449 in costs.
The Cheetham Club could not raise the fund. The matter was raised to the House of Lords. It was decided that “cricket” should pay for it. Contributions came from the MCC as well as club cricketers across England.
The incident set a trend of clubs insuring themselves against these damages.
The sixth six
At Swansea in 1968, Garry Sobers became the first to hit six sixes in an over in first-class cricket, off Malcolm Nash.
The sixth six was the most spectacular of them all. It soared over mid-wicket, between two adjacent buildings, and landed in a bus stop a reasonable distance away from the stadium. A boy found it and took it home.
Viv signs off
Along with Collis King, Viv Richards had lifted the West Indies from 99-4 to 280-9 in the 1979 World Cup final against England at Lord’s.
One ball remained in the innings. Richards shuffled across even before Mike Hendrick had released the ball. In an attempt to bowl a yorker on the middle stump, Hendrick bowled too full.
Richards leaned on one leg and sent it flying over the square-leg fence for six. The shot is not too uncommon today, but was considered outrageous back then.
Miandad’s moment
Every cricket fan on both sides of the border has either watched the shot or grown up hearing stories of it.
Pakistan needed four runs off the last ball to win the 1986 Austral-Asia Cup final in Sharjah. In an attempt to bowl a yorker, Chetan Sharma ended up bowling a full toss. Javed Miandad famously hit over square leg.
Until that six, India had an 8-7 head-to-head record against Pakistan in ODIs. Between that shot and Miandad’s retirement, it flipped to 20-5 in Pakistan’s favour. Coincidence? You decide.
Boom Boom hits 12
The Brits were hosting a Rest of the World XI in Cardiff in 2002. The venue, the Millennium Stadium, was an indoor stadium, and the organisers had promised 12 runs for every shot that would hit the ceiling.
Shahid Afridi pulled it off (who is surprised?) – off Matthew Fleming.
An award-winning six
Sachin Tendulkar hit two famous sixes at the 2003 World Cup, and over time, the one off Shoaib Akhtar became more iconic than the one off Andy Caddick.
Shoaib bowled short, outside off. Tendulkar, in his own words, “spotted the ball early,” slashed at it, and timed it beautifully even by his standards – and watched the ball sail into the crowd. ESPN-Star named it their Sports Moment of the Year for 2003.
Don’t drop your son!
At Edgbaston in 2004, Andrew Flintoff hit seven sixes en route to a violent 167 against the West Indies. One of these, off Jermaine Lawson, soared over long-on and landed where the complimentary ticket holders were seated.
Among them was Andrew’s father Colin “Big Hands”, an active club cricketer. “I saw dad rise from his seat, big smile on his face,” Flintoff recalled.
He dropped the catch.
The most-viewed six?
India needed four in 11 balls to win the 2011 World Cup, and MS Dhoni hit Nuwan Kulasekara over long-on, completed the act with a twirl of the bat, and all of India rushed on to the ground to celebrate. and finished the motion with a twirl of his bat before India erupted in celebrations.
There is no data, but Graham Crouch’s capture of Dhoni’s shot is, perhaps, the most famous photograph of a six.
Devine checks in
In a Super Smash T20 match at Dunedin in 2021, Sophie Devine hit the fastest hundred by a woman in the format. She reached the milestone with a six, off the 36th ball she faced.
The shot hit a little girl in the grass banks just outside the boundary, on the cheek. Instead of celebrating her achievement, Devine walked up and crossed the fence to check out on her.
Kohli takes on Rauf
India needed 28 in eight balls to beat Pakistan at the 2022 T20 World Cup. Then Haris Rauf bowled just short of length, and Kohli made room to use those steely wrists to hit a six over Rauf’s head.
What makes the shot more incredible was that it cleared the colossal Melbourne Cricket Ground to land inside the crowd. Hardik Pandya, the non-striker, could merely bow in appreciation.
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