After the fall, the 10-wicket bag
Jarrod Monkley has pulled off a cricketing miracle of sorts, taking out all 10 of the opposition’s batsmen in one innings.
But as the 21-year-old South Aucklander says, it’s amazing he’s even playing cricket having fallen six storeys off a building site in 2012 - breaking 38 bones in the process.
‘‘It’s a miracle that I’m alive and playing cricket,’’ he says.
‘‘I was in a lot of pain. I was in such a bad way that doctors even told my parents that I was not going to make it.’’
The 21-year-old right arm medium pacer, dismissed the entire United team in their second innings for his Karaka side in a senior A match at the Karaka Sports Park in rural Auckland last Saturday.
Monkley bowled five batsmen, had another four caught and one trapped leg before and finished with figures of 10-31 off 16 overs, a perfect performance considering there wasn’t a bye, leg bye, wide or no-ball conceded.
Monkley was in disbelief with what he’d done.
‘‘I was shocked,’’ he says.
‘‘Taking 10 wickets in an innings is not something that happens every day. I took three wickets in my first spell and seven in the next. It was unbelievable.
‘‘I didn’t set out to do. It just happened. It’s fired me up. I can’t wait to get out again on Saturday and see what I can do against Papakura.’’
Monkley is the first Karaka bowler to take 10 wickets in an innings.
The best figures by a Counties Manukau rep player is Warne Ross’s 8/32 in 1992.
But Counties Manukau cricket boss Trevor Gill says it will be difficult to confirm if it’s ever been done in the lower grades before.
‘‘It could be a record. But we’ve only been keeping electronic records for a few years. Before that the lower grade scores were just kept in books held by the clubs. It’s certainly an amazing feat regardless.’’
Monkley’s name will go up on the Karaka honours board.
But the honours board will not tell the whole story.
It will not show that Monkley took 5-34 in the first innings for match figures of 15 for 65 or that he scored 54 in the first inning, 46 off 25 deliveries in the second which included six fours and three sixes and the fact that he hit the winning run.
Nor will it tell how lucky Monkley is to be alive.
The Rosehill College old boy plunged six storeys off the Auckland Institute of Technology building in downtown Auckland in July of 2012.
He was 16 at the time.
‘‘I’d rather not dwell on my accident. It’s all behind me now. I’d rather focus on the 10 wickets that I took,’’ he says.
‘‘I really love cricket. I always have. The desire to play again was one thing that drove my recovery and rehabilition.’’