First thing he did Saturday morning was switch on the television and watch Daan van Bunge getting hit for six sixes in an over by Herschelle Gibbs. His initial reaction to the special re-telecast package was more relief than joy. It had to, being the only Indian, and only the second bowler in the world after Malcolm Nash of Glamorgan (Bunge became the third), to be at the receiving end of such a ‘feat’.Tilak Raj, who faced the ire of Ravi Shastri in a first class game between Mumbai and Baroda, knows it the best. “Trust me, it’s very embarrassing, quite humiliating to have a record like that against your name. I had got the news late last night itself but somehow couldn’t watch the match,” says Tilak over phone from Ahmedabad, where he’s currently posted. “But I was a relieved man after hearing that news. I just told myself, finally somebody has come to release me from this ‘record’. Mine was first-class cricket, and I wasn’t even a proper bowler. I was a middle-order bat who bowled left-arm spin, just like that. What happened lat night was in international cricket, so I guess finally I would now be spared of all this.” Tilak, who played initially for Delhi, was turning out for Baroda for the first time, just like Mohinder Amarnath in that match. And he remembers that match, that fateful over distinctly. “How can I ever forget? I remember batting first, asked to open the innings, and got a 72, Mohinder getting a hundred.”Next day: Mumbai batting, skipper Kiran More tossed the ball to me, somehow got Sunil Gavaskar bowled for 49. In comes Shastri, casual in his walk to the crease. I had broken a partnership and I was off the bowling. Shastri, fresh from his Audi win from the Benson & Hedges Series, started belting our bowlers. More again tossed the ball to me. I tried to suggest: put the faster bowlers on. He simply said: “Just try and get him out.”Then it came: “I started with 6 fielders on the ring and flighted to lure the batsman into a false shot. He hit for a six over long-on. Again I flighted, this time he hit in the same area, but couldn’t time it properly. The fielder at long-on, Kedar Chauhan, unfortunately dropped the catch, and worse, spilled it over the rope. “I would have had Shastri with my second ball. But it wasn’t to be my day. Next ball, whacked over extra cover area. I just stopped, thought, but decided to toss-up one more. This time it sailed over long-on instead. “It was then my teammate came running to me and said, Shastri is trying to equal the world record of six sixes in an over. A sudden fright hit me inside. Till then it hadn’t crossed my mind. My next ball was a quicker one, outside leg: Shastri just swung it wildly and it went past square-leg boundary.” 5 balls 5 sixes. Now the last one: “When I went on top of my bowling mark, I just muttered a small prayer and bowled a fast ball on good length area and he swung it madly. The ball went straight over my head. I was part of history, part of something I never wanted to be. I never thought it could happen to me. “I didn’t bowl again the entire match. But I did play more games, took the ball again, got wickets too. Yet..‘It was just a moment’BASSETERRE: The other famous example of raining sixes is Garfield Sobers’s six in-a-row off Malcolm Nash for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan in 1968. “I don’t reflect on it ever as a bad thing,” the left-arm medium pacer told the Observer newspaper. “The moment, of course, is with Gary Sobers and not much to do with me. I had a long career, and that was just a moment.” (Reuters)
