Bowlers with dream spells of ten wickets and giving away no run!

 By K.R. Nayar

It is nearly impossible to believe that there are 26 bowlers in the world who have bagged 10 wickets and not given away a single run!  The first recorded instance was in 1867 in England, and thereafter it happened in Australia and South Africa. In 1996, a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Australia achieved this feat, and then in 2017, a 15-year-old boy did it in a Twenty20 match in Jaipur, India. 

Before the start of every match, all bowlers dream of producing a deadly spell. Some bowlers, just to boost themselves up, may also tell themselves that they will produce a deadly five-wicket spell.  While this may sometimes turn into a reality, there can be occasions when he or she may end up getting thrashed for a lot of runs. That is cricket!

In cricket, sometimes even an ordinary bowler can go on to produce a deadly spell. But what can be even more surprising is that there are bowlers who have taken 10 wickets without conceding a single run.  Many believe that one can only dream of such spells...in fact, bowlers who have achieved this feat too may not have expected it. Although this has not been reported in international cricket, these feats have been reported in domestic matches.

I stumbled upon this unbelievable achievement while reading about Jennings Tune who on May 6, 1922, had produced such a spell. Tune recorded this feat for Cliffe in a Howden and District match in Yorkshire against the Eastrington team. Interestingly, Tune had all his ten victims clean bowled. That's when I got curious to find out if there were any more such instances, and I soon found that the first recorded instance of ten wickets without giving any runs was by A. Dartnell who did it for Broad Green against Thornton Heath in 1867.  What surprised me further was to find that there have been 26 such instances when a bowler took all ten wickets without giving away any run.

Until 1999, such deadly spells were reported only in England, Australia, and South Africa, but never in Asia till I found a report of November 8, 2017, that talked about a 15-year-old medium-pacer, Akash Choudhary from Rajasthan, who had picked all ten wickets without conceding a run in a domestic T20 game in Jaipur. Choudhary produced the spell for Disha Cricket Academy while playing against Pearl Academy. His analysis read four overs, four maidens, zero runs, and ten wickets.  Pearl Academy got bowled out for 36 against the Disha Cricket Academy team's total of 156. His feat was reported in local newspapers and on Twitter.

Akash Choudhary. Photo: Twitter 

After A. Dartnell did it for the first time in 1867, the second instance of such a spell also happened in England, when RTP Tearne, who while representing Pershore, took ten wickets for no runs against Swinden’s XI in Pershore in 1879.

The first instance of a ten-wicket spell happening outside England was in 1881 in Sydney, Australia. It was the third instance of such a spell when A. Hipgrave playing for Coy’s Diggings against Redcastle, took all the ten wickets. Between 1867 and 1900, six bowlers went on to achieve this feat. HS Thynne, who played for AC Bell’s XI, had an analysis of ten overs and ten maidens, and ten wickets against Melksham Choir team in 1892. Details of this match show that it was a 12-a-side match of which Thynnee bagged ten wickets.

In the 1900s, the first instance happened in 1902 when J Watts, playing for the Castel team against Junior Hawks, took ten wickets giving away no run. The third country in which such a spell took place was South Africa in the 1949-50 season. WE Edwards, playing for Queen's College, took all of Selborne College’s ten wickets for no run in Queenstown. The first instance of this feat in women’s cricket happened in Australia when a 15-year-old schoolgirl Emma Liddell took ten wickets for no run for Metropolitan East against Metropolitan East at Penrith (Sydney) in 1996. All her ten victims were clean bowled.

Emma Liddell. Photo: Twitter

Till Akash Choudhary did it in India in 2017, it could have been that David Morton’s ten wickets for naught, playing for Bayside Muddies against Ranatungas at Brisbane in 1998-99 must have been considered as the last such instance. But cricket has always surprised us with unbelievable records, and such dream spells may continue to happen even if one has to wait for a long time for them to happen again.