London: Ross Whiteley of Worcestershire hit six six on Sunday to join a select group that has done the feat in the senior cricket.
Whiteley struck spinner Karl Carver for six semesters – a total of 36 runs – during the sixteenth episode of the Worcestershire innings in a Twenty20 match at Headingley.
But he dropped for 65 off 26 balls while Worcestershire finished at 196 for seven in a 37 game loss.
David Willey, from Yorkshire, England’s most complete, made earlier 118 which included 34 races from one more Australian Paceman John Hastings.
The West Indies Grand Garry Sobers was the first batter to hit six six in a first class cricket when, playing for Nottinghamshire, he performed the feat against Glamorgan’s Malcolm Nash in a county championship game at Swansea in 1968.
Since then Ravi Shastri of India, Herschelle Gibbs of South Africa and Yuvraj Singh of India have matched that achievement in first-class, one-day or Twenty20 cricket.
In 2013, Lancashire hitter Jordan Clark hit six six in one more during a second XI match against the arch-rivals Yorkshire in Scarborough.
“It was the right time in the game for me to go for it,” Whiteley said.
“It was all or nothing. Unfortunately for the player was a short limit on the side of the leg.
“I had the mentality that I was going to go for it before I came in. I hit the first of the screws and needed to keep going for the team, not for that achievement.
“It’s something I never really thought I’d do in professional cricket,” he said.
The 28-year-old added: “Personal milestones are great, but it’s difficult to get away from defeat, it’s quite difficult to take, we’ve lost four of five and we’re at the bottom.”
Yorkshire coach Andrew Gale said captain Tim Bresnan, Gale’s brother-in-law, had defeated Carver at the wrong stage of the innings.
“I blame the poor captaincy for that,” he said. “He should not have thrown it in that part of the game.
“I felt for Karl, he has a good record in the T20 cricket and he will recover,” added Gale.
“Ross almost did it a few years ago against us, it was very good,” he said.
