Ask the Readers: What Is Your Greatest Cricketing Moment?
We all suffer the downsides of cricket to experience the brilliant highs.
It doesn’t have to be a Test hundred at Lord’s or hitting the winning runs in a world cup final. Even at low levels of cricket you get a great sense of achievement and pride in your success.
So today I want to celebrate the success of all PitchVision Academy readers by asking:
What’s your greatest cricketing moment?
Runs, wickets or memorable wins... Don’t hold back. Leave a comment in the comments box and reveal your successes to the world.
Perhaps it will inspire you onto even more.
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Comments
Amongst many, many great wins down the years, the most memorable was a T20 game from a few years ago in a knockout competition.
We struggled, and were all out for 120. The opposition had cruised to 112-3 after 14 overs, and things were looking bleak to say the least....
Then the skipper threw me the ball - and I stirred things up with a double wicket maiden, but it still looks like a lost cause... but the ball is clearly turning square.
New bowler at the other end keeps things tight with only 2 off his over.
Over 17, now 7 to win off 3 overs, with 5 wickets in hand. I get 2 more wickets, an lbw and a caught and bowled, but give up a run.
Over 18 goes for 4 runs.
So its 3 to win off the last 2 overs, with 3 wickets in hand.
I bowl another double wicket maiden, both bowled this time.
Last over, they're 118-9: a single off the first ball puts the no 11 on strike. The skipper moves himself into silly point, and the batsman obligingly pushes the next ball straight into his hands.
We've made the most improbable comeback I've ever seen, and I've picked up 6-1.
My greatest cricketing moment came while playing a championship game a few years back. In lead up to that game I actively used visualizing and kept saying to myself I would score a hundred. When we reached the ground I went out to the middle and visualized myself batting. When I went out to open the innings I started cautiously, rotating the strike because my openingspartner was striking the ball really well. I decided that was going to be my gameplan, give him the strike. But then the bowler gave me a short ball outside off. I saw it early and really climbed into it. While cutting it I even jumped a bit, transferring all my power and momentum into the shot. The ball rocketted over the boundary at backwardpoint for six. Thereafter I did not look back. I kept hitting boundaries and kept stealing the strike. Everything clicked. Fifty came and went, I just kept going. The time I reached 70 odd, my openingspartner came up to me and said you are not jogging to your hundred but running towards it. Any shot I tried came off. Then the hundred came, my first!!! By that time we had scored 200 odd runs in 20 overs. My captain came up to me and congratulated me and asked my if I would mind if I was asked to retire. Apparently the other team was complaining that they had had enough of the hammering. I did not mind. It made my innings even better. I just walked off, so our other batters could have a go. That time I was well and truly in the zone...!!!
Takes guts to put a silly point in to be fair. Well played AB.
Mine would probably be the time I got 4 stumpings and 2 catches in a game. Although at the time I just felt like it was an efficient job without any flashes of brilliance, just didn't miss a chance and 6 came my way!
Nice Adeel, keep that feeling for the next time you bat.
Heworth CC tour of Blackpool early 90s. Playing Stand CC with the mother of all hangovers. 50 off 19 balls, 5 for 11 and a great night with a local lass in Blackpool. The all rounders hat trick!
I've just read Adeel's rather more sensible and mature post! On a less frivolous point, I was coaching my group at Oxford Downs CC last year about 'how to score a hundred'. At the end of the session a few of the players remarked that 'if it's that easy how come you haven't scored one this year?' Using many of the techniques Adeel's described in his post I applied myself in the next game. The result? 130 odd followed by 120 odd in the game after that. The Oxford Times described me as 'Ton up Steel' which still causes the kids to extract the urine out of me but did add weight to what I was trying to instill in them. Have I continued this rich vein of form this year? Not a bit of it!
Form is temporary, class is shown by scoring runs with a hangover...
It has got to be either winning the wicketkeeper of the year award for our div last year or my first hundred (over 12 years ago now). I still remember the hundred as if it was yesterday, we were only chasing 135 to win the game and i set off like a mad man, as it was getting close the skipper decided to pad up to give me the best chance (despite being in with a shout for the divisional batting award) we needed 5 to win the game and i needed 6 for my hundred, needless to say the bowler threw up a half volley and i despatched him over long on for my maiden century. My skipper missed out on the batting by less than a run by the way, whether that innings would have made any difference who knows lol.
8-17 in 4.1 overs in a knockout competition, including 5 from 8 balls (including a noball) when my team was on the brink of being beaten, as they needed 7 runs off 3 overs with 5 wickets in hand. Nothing too special, just being cool underpressure and bowling good line and lenghts and watching them fall.