hi,
an interesting piece found in cricinfo is attached.
sure you will enjoy it.
regards.
1990
The 77-run over
When Bert Vance went for 77, in what must rank as one of
the oddest overs in first-class cricket
Martin Williamson
March 13, 2010
When people are asked what is the most number
of runs to come off one over, thoughts turn to Tilak Raj and Malcolm Nash,
who both conceded 36, to Ravi Shastri and Garry Sobers respectively. But in
February 1990, Bert Vance went for more than twice that number in what ranks as
one of first-class cricket's oddest overs.
The incident took place on the final day of Wellington's
Shell Trophy match against Canterbury in Christchurch. It was Wellington's last
game of
the season and they needed to win to ensure that they secured the title. On the
final morning they declared their second innings, leaving Canterbury to chase
291 in what turned out to
be 59 overs.
Canterbury lost early
wickets, and as John Morrison, the former New Zealand batsman and at the time
Wellington's coach, remembers, they "put
the shutters up very early in a run-chase that was very feasible and we just
couldn't remove them in the normal way".
Although Canterbury had looked like losing when they slumped to 108 for 8, Lee
Germon and Roger
Ford had stopped the rot and seemed set to hold out for a draw.
Although when the penultimate over started Canterbury were eight wickets down,
Germon,
their wicketkeeper and no dunce with the bat, was still in and on strike.
Morrison and Erve McSweeney, Wellington's
captain-wicketkeeper, hatched a plan and Bert Vance, the New Zealand batsman
who was nearing the end of his career and so had no bowling figures of
any note to worry about, agreed to help them.
The idea was to feed Canterbury enough runs so that they would get close enough
to the target and then perhaps
risk their last two wickets going for glory. They began the over on 196 for 8
with Germon 75 not out.
Vance proceeded to bowl a succession of no-balls, and of his
first 17 deliveries only one - the second - was legitimate. Full-toss after
full-toss was lobbed down from two or three yards down the track - "Bert
overdid it somewhat," recalled Morrison - and each one was cracked to the
boundary past motionless fielders.
Germon brought up his hundred off the sixth ball, and in all
he took 70 off the over, including eight sixes and five fours. Ford faced two
balls midway through the carnage and scored five.
The real problems, however, were off the pitch, where the
bewildered scorers and scoreboard operators lost track of what was happening
and at one point resorted to consulting with spectators to try to resolve the
chaos. Even the umpire was left bewildered, only allowing five legitimate
deliveries before calling an end to proceedings.
The situation had not been resolved when Ewan Gray bowled
the final over. Unbeknown to both sides, Canterbury had moved to within 18 of
victory, and another 17 from Germon off the first
five balls levelled the scores.
But with the scoreboard rendered inactive as the scorers
still battled to make sense of Vance's over, Ford blocked the last delivery of
the match. Only when the players returned to their changing rooms did the
position become clear.
The arguments continued long after the match. "There
was all sorts of debate discussing this outrageous situation," recalled
Morrison. "Howls of protest and the like, but in the end we were not
docked any points, and through a couple of other very fortuitous results we won
the championship. As you can imagine I copped a fair bit of flack, but winning
the championship took most of the sting out of that... I quickly went from the
outhouse to the penthouse!"
But the hastily conceived plan had almost backfired. "I
nearly had heart failure when I learnt a little time after the game that
Canterbury only needed
one to win and we had Vance bowling to a very leaky field," Morrison
explained. "It was also very possible because of the confusion that he may
have bowled yet another no-ball.
"I decided that the tactic, while being innovative, was
definitely a once only! But it's now a noted game and lives on whereas if the
conventional tactics had been used the game would have faded completely and
anonymously into the past."
Much like Steve O'Shaughnessy's 35-minute hundred in 1983,
Vance's over is consigned to being a footnote in the record books, although the
182-run ninth-wicket stand remains a Canterbury record.
The over went as follows (the balls in bold are the
legitimate ones) - 0444664614106666600401 .
Bibliography
Wisden Cricket Monthly April 1990
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