Why the Gatting ball is not the best of the century | Cricket | ESPN Cricinfo
This article argues that the Warne delivery to Gatting, widely known around the world as the ball of the century is perhaps not the best candidate for the title. If you don't want read the whole article on why that is, then to sum up the article essentially makes the case that there was no real 'contest' between bat and ball there, that Gatting was no match for Warne's guile to begin with, and that Gatting's clueless footwork actually makes the ball look better than it actually was.
He further makes the case that a very good contender for the ball of the century is this double - swing yorker from Wasim Akram -
The ball first starts off swinging in to Cork as he faced up, only to move away at the last second. Sadly a rahter plumb lbw was turned down by Umpire Shepard, most likely because being the old fashioned type, Shepard was not too keen on sorcery being used as a way of taking a wicket. Also Dominic Cork, much like Gatting was not exactly the greatest of batsmen.
The article says that the 'ball of the century' must have been bowled to a batsman worth the challenge. The delivery the article finally settles on is the one bowled by Waqar Younis to Lara in Rawalpindi. To give some context Lara had already taken 10 runs off the over and then Waqar bowled this -
The 'real' 'ball of the century' the article says.
This article argues that the Warne delivery to Gatting, widely known around the world as the ball of the century is perhaps not the best candidate for the title. If you don't want read the whole article on why that is, then to sum up the article essentially makes the case that there was no real 'contest' between bat and ball there, that Gatting was no match for Warne's guile to begin with, and that Gatting's clueless footwork actually makes the ball look better than it actually was.
He further makes the case that a very good contender for the ball of the century is this double - swing yorker from Wasim Akram -
The ball first starts off swinging in to Cork as he faced up, only to move away at the last second. Sadly a rahter plumb lbw was turned down by Umpire Shepard, most likely because being the old fashioned type, Shepard was not too keen on sorcery being used as a way of taking a wicket. Also Dominic Cork, much like Gatting was not exactly the greatest of batsmen.
The article says that the 'ball of the century' must have been bowled to a batsman worth the challenge. The delivery the article finally settles on is the one bowled by Waqar Younis to Lara in Rawalpindi. To give some context Lara had already taken 10 runs off the over and then Waqar bowled this -
The 'real' 'ball of the century' the article says.
