Terrific tale from this week’s excellent Guardian column ‘The Spin’, concerning the extraordinary climax to a recent fixture in New Zealand’s Napier club league, between Napier Old Boys’ Marist and Napier Technical Old Boys. As The Spin explains, NTOB “contrived to lose four wickets to just two legal deliveries, a collapse of such staggering collective ineptitude that is believed to be a first in the history of the game.”
“The story begins in the 48th over, bowled by Sri Lankan off-spinner Indika Senerathne, with NTOB six wickets down and trailing by 153 runs. No7 Stevie Smidt was stumped off an ‘unplayable wide’. No8, Liam Rukuwi, tried an ambitious lap-sweep and was clean-bowled for a golden duck. No9, JK Whyte, attempted an on-drive, only to chip a catch straight back to the bowler. So that was a hat-trick.
“Sadly for NTOB, their No10 Craig Herrick had actually been standing in as the scorer for the innings. Understandably enough, he got so caught up in all the confusion that he had not got around to padding up yet. As he rushed to the dressing room, Senerathne shrewdly decided to remind the umpires of the ‘Timed Out’ law, in which a batsman will be given out if he takes longer than three minutes to get to the crease.
“NTOB’s not out batsman, Craig Findlay, caught word of what Senerathne was up to and shouted back to the boundary, where Herrick “was standing at the gate and everyone was telling him to rush out”. A shambles of buckles, gloves, pads and bat, Herrick “carried on casually padding up as he walked on to the field. He took five minutes to reach the middle, so the umpires had no choice but to give him out.”
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