| Despite the gym-honed physiques and soft-pressed blades of the modern era where sixes have become routine and pepper the stands the world over, the six sixes feat has never happened in a Test. More than that, no one has come close – four consecutive sixes have been hit three times. Some compare the feat to the nine-dart finish or snooker’s 147 break but the Test Match Special statistician, Andy Zaltzman, sees it differently and explains why the achievement might not occur in a Test any time soon. “The 147 and the nine-darter are the logical results of doing something perfectly, whereas six sixes requires an effort to do something extraordinary, the risks of doing which don’t generally make strategic sense in Test cricket,” he says. We shouldn’t put a flutter on Harry Brook, Ben Stokes or Rishabh Pant doing it this summer then? “Since June 2022, sixes have been hit, on average, once per 155 balls in Tests. Obviously, it doesn’t quite work like this, but that suggests the likelihood of hitting three sixes in a row is one in approximately 3.7m and hitting six in a row one in 13.7 trillion.” You always hear it, Test cricket – it’s a bowler’s game. For the time being, one of cricket’s remaining Everests remains unclimbed, but you suspect a few might be capable of a tilt at the six-hitting summit. Sidling up to Shastri The sonic-boom voice, cotton-candy sweepback and tinted shades. A resting face that suggests he is always just noticing a suspicious smell. It took me three days to pluck up the courage to sidle up to Ravi Shastri at Headingley during the first Test. Finally, with Rishabh Pant in full flow in India’s second innings, I took my chance to ask him about his six sixes feat. In an Indian state game between Bombay and Baroda in 1985, Shastri became the second man after Garry Sobers (in 1968) to hit six sixes in professional cricket. “It’s a special thing to be part of,” says Shastri. “It’s a hard thing to do, as shown by how few times it has been achieved.” Does he think it might happen in a Test? “I could see Pant or Stokes doing it definitely. You need to get four in a row and then … it’s on.” Sobers did once confess of his six-fest in Swansea that “sometimes I wish I’d never done it … wherever I go, all I hear is ‘tell us about the six sixes.’” Shastri does not feel the same, but the feat follows him around. “Still now I get things like ‘hey six man’ in certain places.” I mention that Broad confessed that he’s never seen the full clip of Yuvraj taking him apart. By a cricketing quirk of fate, Shastri was on commentary for that match. Shastri gathers up his phone with a deep laugh and says he is off to put that right once and for all. Part of each them will for ever be the hitter and the hit. Quote of the week The ECB is fully entitled to call the series by any name they choose. But for most, if not all, Indian cricket lovers, it is jarring to know that Anderson’s name comes first … I urge all Indian cricket lovers including the India media to call it the Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy” – pocket sized but never shy of a big opinion, Sunil Gavaskar takes on the alphabet. Memory lane The World Cup final on 25 June 1983 was memorable for many reasons, not least India’s David cutting down the Goliath of West Indies. There was Kris Srikkanth’s square-drive off Andy Roberts, knee on the floor and wrists snapping like castanets, the ball tracing across the Lord’s turf at warp speed. Madan Lal snuffing out Viv Richards, aided by an all-timer catch from Kapil Dev. Mohinder Amarnath’s trio of wickets to rip the guts out of West Indies’ vaunted batting lineup and their chances of a third straight World Cup. Amarnath scooped player of the match for his three wickets and for scrabbling 26 runs off 80 balls in the best part of two hours. It really was a different world. | 