Garfield Sobers, eat your heart out
The only sport I ever actively enjoyed playing was cricket, which is strange for a Scot, but there you go.

Anyway, we used to play it in the playground at primary school, during the summer. This wasn't part of formal PE lessons, it was just what we did before school and at lunchtime. The playground was quite big, and there were certain unique ground rules regarding scoring. A four was deemed to have been scored if the ball hit any of the walls enclosing the playground. To score a six required the ball to be hit over the side wall, into the car park/grassy field.

However, if the ball was hit over the wall into the field at the top of the playground, a six was awarded, but the batsman was also declared out, because there was a horse in the field, and we were a bit scared of it when we went to recover the ball!

But my finest moment came one day when I hit a sweep shot worthy of Ian Botham in his prime, which went round to my leg side, and continued down behind me, past the school, out the gates and down the main road. Because it hadn't hit the wall, the ball was deemed to be still in play, and so by the time the fielders (with the help of the lollipop lady) had run down the road and retrieved it, I had amassed a total of 12 runs off a single ball.

The annoying thing was that had I not been a fat lazy sod, I'd probably have managed another half dozen!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 12:45, 1 reply)

Ah, the quality days
of a 35 run over. I remember an very similar sounding story - primary school, with the blue plastic bats and the orange rubber balls. I always had a bit of an arm on me, so I spanged the orange fucker right over the school building, over the main road into someone's vegetable garden. Great shot.

There was the time it was raining so we were playing the same game indoors, in the hall. Lucian steps up to the wickets. A ball is thrown. Being on the varnished wood floor, the thing bounced like a space ball, Lucian swung, clipped the lower edge and sent it richocheting into the rafters. It connected with one of the long strip lights and dismounted the cover, which came falling down right between batter and bowler, where it promptly shattered over our pasty legs. A few shell-shocked children that day..
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 15:17, closed)