Amazing Cricket Facts

ACF 3: When Kapil Dev hit 4 Sixes in a row to avoid the follow-on!

Welcome back for another Amazing Cricket Facts series article.

This time, I have come up with one of the lesser known cricket fact about Kapil Dev. The World cup winning former Indian captain had always been sound with his attacking batting skills and arousing performances.

THE MATCH

India was playing England in a 1990 Test match at the infamous Lord’s cricket stadium. England, while batting first ended up with a huge first innings score of 653/4, thanks to their skipper Graham Gooch’s exciting 333. It was the England skipper’s highest score in Tests, and the 5th Triple century for England in Tests – interestingly the latest one from his country, till date.

Graham Gooch 333
Graham Gooch on his way to 333, the highest individual score in any match at Lord’s.

Happened to bat against a huge total in board, Team India replied with centuries from their opener Ravi Shastri (100) and the skipper Mohammad Azharuddin (121).

THE INCIDENT

Despite the strong batting show from the visiting team’s batsmen, India found themself at one point with the scorecard reading 430/9, needing 24 to avoid follow-on.

With just one wicket in hand, Kapil Dev was left with the No.11 batsman, Narendra Hirwani to do the needful.

It was when Eddie Hemmings came into bowl the 114th over in the Indian innings, Kapil Dev did something that’s undoable in those times.

After defending the first two balls of that over, Kapil Dev hit 4 sixes in the row against the English off-breaker to prevent his team from the follow-on.

Can you believe it? Kapil just straight driven Hemmings four times consecutively with each balls landing in the building constructions (somehow was there) outside the boundary lines.