Cricket is a game of battle between bat and ball and there are times when one of those becomes completely dominant over the other. One of such instances is when the batsman dominates the game so much that he hits all the six balls of an over for over-boundary or in other words he hits six sixes in an over. This is not a frequent feat and requires great skill to ensure perfect timing and power for all the six balls in an over.
Six sixes in an over were first achieved by the great West Indian allrounder Sir Garry Sobers in 1968. Playing for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan he hit six sixes of Malcolm Nash, an off-spinner. 16 years later this feat was replicated by the Indian allrounder and current head coach of Indian team Ravi Shastri. In a Ranji Trophy match between Bombay and Baroda, Shastri hit the Baroda spinner Tilak Raj for six sixes in an over.
Both the incidents were not in international cricket and such domination was unprecedented. On this day, in 2007 Herschelle Gibbs became the first batsman to achieve the record of hitting six sixes in an over in international cricket. As part of the 2007 World Cup, South Africa was playing the Netherlands and Gibbs were already dominating the bowler. When he faced the Dutch leg spinner, Daan van Bunge, he went to overdrive and hit all the deliveries from his over for sixes. The match was played in Warner Park, one of the smallest grounds in the world and that helped. South Africa went on to score 353 runs and won the match by 221 runs. Gibbs finished with a 40-ball 72 in that match.
Later in that year, during the first T20 World Cup in South Africa, Yuvraj Singh hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over in a tough encounter between India and England. Shastri was at the commentary box on that day and his description of Yuvraj’s six sixes have become part of cricket folklore.
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