Video: When Sir Garry Sobers created history by hitting six sixes in an over

Sir Garry Sobers made history when he smashed six sixes in an over in 1968

On 31^st August 1968, West Indian great Sir Garfield Sobers became the first cricketer to smash six sixes in an over in first class cricket. The legendary cricketer achieved the feat in an English county match for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan. The season was coming to a close and Sobers’s Nottingham was placed fifth when they played Glamorgan at St. Helen's in Swansea.

As the captain of the side, Sobers was looking for some quick runs for declaration and the Malcolm Nash, who bowled medium-pace but was bowling spin that day to get Sobers out, became the prey. The left-hander blasted all six balls bowled by the then 23-year-old Nash beyond the boundary.

"I wasn't bothered if I was out or not, all I was interested in was quick runs and a declaration,” Sobers later remarked, recalling the feat.

The first two balls were heaved over mid-wicket followed by a straight six down the ground. The fourth ball was pulled towards square-leg with brutal force.

"It was only then that I contemplated going for the six sixes," Sobers said.

Notably, the fifth ball of the over was caught at long off, but the fielder Roger Davis couldn’t maintain his balance and landed beyond the boundary rope after taking the catch.

With only one ball remaining, Nash decided he was done with spin and bowled seam up, but didn’t change his run-up.

"I had him 'caught' off the fifth ball, but the only really bad ball I bowled was the last one. I tried to bowl a medium-paced seamer up in the blockhole. But I didn't change my run-up and that was a real mistake. It was a half-tracker and he whacked it out of the ground. It was the first ball I bowled all day that deserved to be hit for six," Nash later told the Telegraph.

The sixth ball was on the shorter side and was easily put away by Sobers who accepted the applause of the packed crowd and also declared the innings. So powerful was Sobers’s last hit that the ball landed outside the stadium. It was picked in the street by an 11-year-old boy, who returned it to the West Indian great a couple of years later.

Nash, who ended his carrer with 991 first-class wickets, is better remembered for this historic incident, something which he’s been asked about many a times.

"People will remember what they chose to remember. 'I don't reflect on it ever as a bad thing. That moment is, of course, all to do with Garry Sobers, and not much to do with me," he says.

Interestingly, Sobers himself doesn’t rate this achievement too highly.

“It makes me feel that that's the only thing I've done in the history of cricket,” he later said in an interview. “It wasn't really good cricket, six sixes are not good cricket ... it's not the kind of cricket you want to teach youngsters.”

This feat was later replicated by Ravi Shastri in a first-class match in 1985. Herschelle Gibbs became the first batsman to do this in international cricket in 2007 ODI World Cup, followed by Yuvraj Singh’s feat the same year in the T20 World Cup.