Ball of the past century???

[King]

It is hard to point one delivery and claim it was the ball of the century. For the Aussies the ball of the century was the one bowled by Warnie to Gatting in the 1992 Ashes. For me the one Akram bowled in the 1996 series is the one. Anyone that has played cricket knows it is virtually impossible bowl the ball in the following video as a left hander particularly from around the stumps. This one was bowled at good pace and a lot of attributes make this the ball of the past century for me. I know I will get fair bit of flak for this but IMO it sure was. Bowling from around the stumps to a right hander, Akram angled this ball down the leg (natural angle when you bowl from around the stumps), the ball was heading down the leg but just when the ball was about to drop the ball changed it's trajectory and started to move away towards off stump :gack: Let alone the batsman even the umpire was deceived by this ball and ruled the batsman not out. I can see why the umpire had a blemished look and wasn't certain what happened there. The batsman of course tried to play the ball down the leg naturally but was beaten in the air as the ball tailed outside in the last couple of yards or so. Try as much but if you can make this happen you are a star. I've seen a lot of bowlers get reverse swing but not as clean as this one and not as late as this one. Waqar, Donald and couple others used to do it too but no way comparable to this ball. I haven't seen another ball that defied physics and bamboozled the batter, the umpire and even the viewers :shrug:

[King]

Re: Ball of the past century??? BTW wait a minute or so for the video to come up.

[kabira]

Re: Ball of the past century??? its not working

[King]

Re: Ball of the past century??? It sure is mate, I'm just watching now. If you wait a while it will load.

[dhruvdeepak]

Re: Ball of the past century??? i felt that Akram's ball to Dravid at Chennai in '99 was one of the best ever, given the previous sequence of deliveries and then the shee brilliance of that one ball, to which Dravid had ABSOLUTELY no answer

[Holysmoke]

Re: Ball of the past century??? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8735581696703543175 second ball or

[kablooee87]

Re: Ball of the past century??? man, the amount of movement in the last 4 yards or so is mind boggling.

[Rajiv]

Re: Ball of the past century???

i felt that Akram's ball to Dravid at Chennai in '99 was one of the best ever' date=' given the previous sequence of deliveries and then the shee brilliance of that one ball, to which Dravid had ABSOLUTELY no answer[/quote'] I made a gif file of that ball many moons ago, that was a great ball But, if u ever had to see the best shot ever, it was in the same match when tendulkar hit wasims in-swinging yorker for a 4 When I saw it live, I kept wondering, how the hell did he even pick that

[Guest dada_rocks]

Re: Ball of the past century??? It's nothing sort of brilliant if he achieved it without tampering with the seam and to me it's a big IF. These guys can never be trusted to play fair game..