All-Time Greatest Over

Many people can recall outstanding deliveries, such as Shane Warne's "ball of the century" to Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1993. It's not often that a whole over stands out in the mind quite so dramatically, but one which is still talked about came at Bridgetown in March 1981. The bowler was Michael Holding, and the unfortunate batsman on the receiving end was Geoff Boycott.

Holding's first ball was a three-quarter-pace loosener which nevertheless rapped Boycott on the gloves and dropped just short of the slips. Each succeeding ball after that was quicker than the previous one. The second beat Boycott outside the off stump, and the third cut back and struck him on the inside of his right thigh. The fourth and fifth both hurried Boycott, but he just about managed to keep them out. "He middled none," wrote Gladstone Holder in The Nation, "but any lesser mortal would have been out." And Ian Botham recalled that Boycott was "jumping about like a jack-in-the-box".

Then came the final ball, the coup de grace, delivered at a fearsome pace ("It went like a rocket," Boycott recalled), which was pitched up and sent his off stump cartwheeling almost 20 yards as he desperately and belatedly brought his bat down. "The hateful half-dozen had been orchestrated into one gigantic crescendo," wrote Frank Keating. After a momentary silence, the crowd erupted. "Boycott looked round," observed Keating, "then as the din assailed his ears, his mouth gaped and he tottered as if he'd seen the Devil himself. Then slowly he walked away, erect and brave and beaten." In the press box there was also a stunned silence. Holder glanced towards the England dressing-room and saw Chris Old "with his mouth wide open ... he too had the look of a man who had seen a monster".