I GOT HIT FOR SIX SIXES IN AN OVER BY SOBERS . . . BUT I’M NOT BITTER!

50 years on, Malcolm Nash recalls the most extraordinary afternoon

Fifty years on from the afternoon that could have ruined him, Malcolm Nash is signing copies of his new book in the Balconiers Bar at the St Helen’s ground in South Wales. Across the road, Swansea Bay is shimmering in the sun. there is reminiscence in the sea air.

it is lunch as Glamorgan play, and customers pop by for a chat, an autograph and a book.

Conversation heads in a predictable direction.

‘How long did it take you to get over it — 30 years?’ asks one. Nash doesn’t skip a beat: ‘ About 30 seconds.’ Another is emboldened: ‘you were the slowest opening bowler i ever saw.’ Nash almost bristles, but joins in the repartee with just a hint of gritted teeth.

He’s heard worse. After all, he’s the man Garry Sobers hit for six sixes in an over. And there have been times when he’s been made to feel as if those sixes were his purpose in life. ‘ Pass the salt, Malcolm. Now, tells us about Sobers . . . ’ the title of Nash’s book — Not

Only, But Also — alludes to the other things in his career, the wickets, the runs, the camaraderie, the sheer fun and frolics of being a county cricketer in the days when county cricket meant something to the wider community.

And here’s the paradox. Nash wouldn’t have written the book unless the sixes had happened — yet he doesn’t want the sixes to define him. it is a poignant symbiosis. And it all happened barely 70 yards from his box of books.

it was 1968. Most men Nash’s age, 23, were enjoying the decadence of the era. Nash was busy trying to turn himself into a version of Derek Underwood, switching between left-arm seam and spin.

it was spin he was bowling on the day he ran into Sobers (below).

At around 5pm on Saturday, August 31, the first afternoon of their Championship match with high- flying Glamorgan, Nottinghamshire had reached 358 for five. Sobers was in as low as No 7, but only because he had nipped down the bookies and couldn’t be found. Now, he was in the mood for quick runs and — this being a three-day game — a declaration. the pitch was closer than usual to Gorse Lane, which for a left-hander like Sobers meant a short legside boundary. Nash

already had four wickets. Sobers, the best player in the world — one of Nash’s own heroes, no less —- would do nicely as the fifth.

Collar up, helmetless, devil-maycare, Sobers hit the first ball over wide long- on, and the second slightly squarer, clattering the roof of the Cricketers pub, which still stands, sign and all, though it pulled its last pint in 2015 and was sold off for student housing.

the third went over long-off into the evocative wooden benches — another feature of the ground that has remained intact. it was a mighty blow, and showed off Sobers’ exaggerated backlift. the fourth cleared deep midwicket.

the fifth almost ruined everything. Sobers picked out Roger Davis, who was in a few yards at long-off because he was fearful of tumbling into a deep ditch behind a wall just beyond the boundary.

Davis clung on and fell backwards. Sobers thought he was out and began to walk off, but Glamorgan’s tony Cordle — ‘a fellow Barbadian’, Nash says — was at long-on and signalled six.

Some in the crowd shouted ‘Out’. Others, alert to the chance to say ‘i was there’, clamoured for six. the umpires conferred. Six it was. five down. One to go.

Nash stayed round the wicket, but decided to bowl a quicker one.

it was the worst ball of an otherwise accurate over, short and hittable. And Sobers, like the great player he was, had read Nash’s mind. He knew what was coming.

Commentating for the BBC after ignoring orders from London to pull the plug on the coverage, the former Glamorgan captain Wilf Wooller called the six as soon as it

‘There’s no point crying about it. Garry and I had a few beers that night and I wasn’t glum. But I didn’t bowl slow left-arm again for a while’

left the bat and disappeared in a violent parabola over midwicket midwicket. ‘He’s done it! He’s done it! And my goodness, it’s gone way down to Swansea.’ It was the first time six sixes had been hit in an over of senior cricket anywhere in the world. Did Nash realise?

‘only when we were walking off,’ he said. ‘you could hear Wilf, “oh, that’s a world record!” Everyone from here to Neath could hear that.’

The ball disappeared but was later found by 17-year-old schoolboy Richard lewis on St Helen’s Road — still rolling, so the story goes. Tired of waiting for a replacement, Sobers declared. But his feat would live with him, and Nash, for ever.

Fifty years on, Nash — tall, amiable, phlegmatic and a little fuller round the middle — alternates between robust acceptance of his part in history and good-humoured irritation.

‘People say, “Why didn’t you bowl wide?” I’d say, “Why would I bowl wide? How am I going to get him out?” That’s all I wanted to do.

‘It was the first time in first-class cricket I’d played against him and I thought I need to get the best player in the world out. This is my man.’ Could he have changed his angle? ‘I think if I’d have gone over the wicket, I’d have given him more leverage, and he’d have hit it further. But if I could cramp him . . .

‘I wanted to get him out from the first ball to the last and when he declared I thought, “I can’t get him out next over now!” The fact that he hit every ball for six didn’t bother me. I’d bowled to the greatest there’d ever been and nearly had him out. I had achieved what I set out to do, which was make him play a bad shot.

‘People say, how did you feel after that over? I say, just how I feel now. I’m oK. I was a little bit shellshocked after the last six, for 30 seconds, literally. And that was a rank rotten ball. It went miles. I thought, “I can’t take that back”.

‘There’s no point moaning and groaning and crying about it. Garry and I had a few beers that night and I wasn’t glum. I’ve got broad shoulders. But I didn’t bowl slow left-arm again for a while.’

Even now, after a triple heart bypass which persuaded him to move back to Wales after years spent coaching in North America, Nash exudes the competitive edge that brought him 993 first- class wickets and took him to the brink of a Test cap.

And while he was quickly able to rationalise what Sobers had done to him, his billing as one of cricket’s most famous fall-guys offends his professional pride. ‘That’s why I did the book,’ he says. ‘Because people would say, you’re the guy that got hit for six sixes. I’d say, yeah, I am. But I’d also say, who scored the fastest ever 100 in the Benson & Hedges Cup? They’d say, “Viv Richards?” I’d say no. “Clive lloyd?” No. “Barry Richards?” No. I said, you’re talking to him right now. They’d say, “you?” I’d say, yeah.

‘People would say, “I didn’t know that”. And I’d say of course you don’t. you only think about one over, which was five minutes in my life. one over out of 11,000 I bowled — that’s all you talk about.

‘A lot of other things have happened, and maybe people should be made aware of what they were,’ he added. Nash is into his stride.

He’s not bitter but he is passionate. He wants to rewrite his story. or at least to change its emphasis. you can’t really blame him.

‘I was never a big stats man, but when I look back, I see I took nearly 1,000 wickets, got 45 fivewicket hauls and five 10-wicket hauls — that’s not too bad.

‘I took a lot of catches and got three hundreds. I went at 3.3 an over in one-day cricket. Hey, not a bad player.’

Fate wasn’t quite finished with Nash. Nine years later, at the same ground, though bowling this time from the Mumbles Road End, he was hit for 34 in an over by lancashire’s Frank Hayes — five sixes, but a four off the second ball.

‘you’ve got to make light of these things,’ said Nash. ‘So I’d say, I’m in the Guinness Book of Records at No 1 and No 2. you tell me who’s managed that?

‘But I’ve dished out the medicine in my own sweet time. Ask John Mortimore what he felt being hit for nine sixes here, which I did against Gloucester.

‘That was a Glamorgan record until a couple of years ago, when Graham Wagg hit 11 against Surrey at Guildford.’

Nash asks whether I’ve ever written about the second instance of six sixes in an over — by Ravi Shastri for Bombay against Baroda in 1984-85 off the bowling of Tilak Raj. I haven’t, I say slightly sheepishly.

‘That’s the issue,’ says Nash. ‘It’s always the first. People talk about Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile, or Edmund Hillary being the first up Everest. They don’t talk about anyone else going up after.

‘Does it bother me? No, it doesn’t. It was a cricketing experience. you’ve got to learn how to deal with that. When Ravi Shastri hit his sixes, Tilak Raj retired a couple of years after.

‘It depends on your make-up, whether you can suffer the . . . abuse would be the wrong word, but the drama that goes with it. If you can put that to one side and say, hey, that was five minutes, and I’ve got a lot more good five minutes coming, then it’s a different ball game.’ What did he learn?

‘Perseverance. Keep going. Don’t give up. I never gave up.’

The next year, Glamorgan won their first Championship title since 1948. They didn’t lose a game, and Nash was their leading wickettaker, with 71 at under 19 apiece. ‘It opened a lot of people’s eyes.’