There are ways that’ll keep foot behind line

Dear Morne

Jirre, boet, how many times are you going to take a Test wicket with a no-ball? You did it again against Bangladesh … for the 14th time! It’s a world record and although it’s always nice to be in the record books, this is one I’m sure you’d rather not have alongside your name.

I remember when I was at school, and that is an achievement because it was in the 1980s. We had a PT teacher who doubled as our cricket coach and he was one of those no-nonsense individuals who wasn’t averse to dishing out six-of-the-best. You will appreciate how long ago that was because these days giving an errant pupil a good hiding is frowned upon.

Anyway, Parktown’s Under-14 team were playing arch-rivals KES and we had a tearaway fast bowler who scared the bejesus out of every batsman who faced him. He was one of those freaks of nature and at the tender age of 13 he was just shy of six feet tall and had muscles in places most of us at that age didn’t even have places.

He was the only 13-year-old kid I knew who had to shave regularly and I remember he used to boast about getting into movies rated

Guy Hawthorne

PG18 without even having to produce an ID book.

He was our match-winner ... the guy we relied on to knock over the opposition’s top order so that the rest of us could hurl our pies at the middle and lower order. And he was on fire on that particular day. We had scored a healthy 160-odd for 7 in our 30 overs and we looked to him to do his bit. He rearranged the one opening batsman’s stumps with the second ball of the innings and trapped the other opener lbw – also inflicting what I’m convinced was a broken ankle – with the last ball of the first over.

We were cock-a-hoop and, with KES on 1/2, started celebrating what we were convinced was going to be a comfortable win over.

However, their No 3 batsman was a classy player and he started to rebuild the KES innings with a wonderful exhibition of strokeplay. As he neared his half-century, our captain tossed the ball to our fearsome opener, who had one over in the bag, with the instruction to “take this guy out”.

It turned out to be a 10-ball over, with our “hero” turning into a villain by sending down four noballs, the last of which was a beauty which swung back and clipped the top of the off-stump of their star batsman. Said batsman went on the make a century and we lost by two wickets.

Our fast bowler got six of the best and never bowled a no-ball for the rest of the season, and probably the rest of his cricketing life.

I’m not suggesting Ottis Gibson haul out the cane and thrash you on the rear end, but maybe a stiff fine would do the trick. Or perhaps a good hiding is not a bad idea …