The Fastest Over Ever | |
Introduction - By Michael - Video - Miscellany | |
Other online mentions and references to the fastest over ever: Kingston College: "Heroics against England aren't over yet. Five years later the two teams again meet, this time in the Caribbean. It didn't seem that 13 years had passed since we were huddled over radios as Sobers trapped Boycott lbw for 90 in that Third Test in Barbados on the '68 tour. That same batting technocrat, now armour-clad, is still run-ravenous. He makes his way on to the same ground to open against the West Indies for the 46th time. Little does he suspect that the six deliveries he is about to receive from Holding will be dubbed by many as six of the most testing ever bowled. The resident second slip remembered the sequence: ``The one that bowled him wasn't as quick, but the first five - good God.'' CricInfo: "When England batted, Boycott opened with Graham Gooch, and after an over in which Andy Roberts twice found the edge of Gooch's bat, Boycott prepared to face Holding. What followed left the crowd in raptures and Boycott - and his team-mates - stunned. "Holding's first ball was a three-quarter-pace loosener which nevertheless rapped Boycott on the gloves and dropped just short of the slips. Each succeeding ball after that was quicker than the previous one. The second beat Boycott outside the off stump, and the third cut back and struck him on the inside of his right thigh. The fourth and fifth both hurried Boycott, but he just about managed to keep them out. "He middled none," wrote Gladstone Holder in The Nation, "but any lesser mortal would have been out." And Ian Botham recalled that Boycott was "jumping about like a jack-in-the-box".
"In the press box there was also a stunned silence. Holder glanced towards the England dressing-room and saw Chris Old "with his mouth wide open ... he too had the look of a man who had seen a monster". "Boycott spent the rest of the day replaying the sixth ball over and over in his mind, and at the close of play he went to a journalist's room to watch a video of the fateful over. He studied the replays several times before he told them that he had seen what he wanted to see and was going to bed.... "Holding himself explained that he doesn't think the over was his fastest. But in 1990 he was paired with Boycott in the commentary box when they replayed the over. "Nine years on," Holding grinned, "and he didn't enjoy it any more." Andrew Cracknell, seated in the ground: Not
only was I there, I was sitting at point to Boycott, so I could see the
pace - or rather, in the case of the first ball, not see it! |