1. Frank Lane, noted writer on
natural history subjects, wrote of a match at Nairobi in the days when the bush encroached
very near to the town and a batsman drove a ball towards the boundary. As it was going
over the line a lion jumped out of the bush and began playing with the ball. The fielders
claimed "LOST BALL" but the umpires insisted that, as the ball could be seen ,
it wasn't lost. The batsmen crossed for an unrecorded number of runs before enough men
arrived to chase off the lion and retrieve the somewhat chewed-up ball.
2. An unusual fate befell the ball hit by boys playing at Earlwood, Sydney,
Australia. An elephant from a circus nearby was browsing at the edge of a cricket ground
when a ball was driven towards it. The elephant fielded the ball with its trunk, swallowed
it and the game ended.
3. Some cricketers develop a real affection for their bats. James Broad Bridge, of
Sussex , carried his bat with him when he went for walk: Ted Wainwright of Yorkshire, took
his bat to bed with him . While Daniel Day and John Bowyer of Surrey were buried with
theirs.
4. In a local Match in Lancashire in 1898 a batsman hit the ball over a cliff. The
umpire refused to signal 'lost ball' and while the fielders climbed down to retrieve the
ball the batsman had scored 264 runs.
5. John Edrich of Derbyshire achieved a remarkable analysis against Lancashire at
Old Trafford on July 5th 1955 and the press gave it some prominence It read
O-M-R-W
0-0-4-0
6. One of the most astonishing bowling analysis on record was returned by
R.G.Nadkarni in the India vs England Test at Madras in 1964 . It read 32-27-5-0
7. And in 1971 officials at Sydney Cricket Ground announced that Prizes totaling
almost $2000 would be given to the first batsman to shatter the new clock face on the
pavilion . No one seems to have achieved the feat yet.
8. Gerald Howat in village cricket tells how on Beacon Hill, near Rottingdean,
Sussex, 67 runs were scored off a single hit. The ball ran down to the nearby village and
was retrieved by a relay system of fielders. At the last stage one of them threw the ball
over the wicket keeper's head so that it rolled down the other side of the hill.
9. When a cricket ground is situated alongside a railway line the ball sometimes
travels many miles -by train. Eddie Paynter once hit a ball out of the ground at
Manchester in to a truck on a passing train and it was carried to Liverpool. And C.B.Fry
once hit a delivery from Ranji into a nearby marshalling yard and the ball disappeard
forever down a funnel.
10. Kendal Cricket ground is similarly situated and, many years ago, one big hit
landed the ball in the engine cab of a passing train. In this case an obliging driver drew
upbeyond the station and returned the ball. On another occasion a ball hit from the same
ground landed on a passenger train and was carried to Windermere.
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