A Short History of Six Sixes in an Over

An over is six legal balls. Hitting all six for six is the rarest achievement a batsman can post during a single over of cricket. It has happened a handful of times across more than 150 years of recorded cricket. Each instance is talked about for decades. The Six Sixes Challenge in SweepSix exists because of one specific afternoon in Swansea in 1968 and one specific over in Durban in 2007.

Garry Sobers, 1968

The first man to hit six sixes in a single over in first-class cricket was Garfield Sobers, playing for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan at St Helen's, Swansea, on 31 August 1968. The bowler was Malcolm Nash, a left-arm pace bowler experimenting that day with left-arm spin. Sobers cleared the rope six times in succession. The fifth six was caught on the boundary by Roger Davis but Davis stepped on the rope; the umpire signalled six. The sixth landed somewhere near the cricket ground's car park.

The over made the front pages of British newspapers the next day. It was also the first six sixes captured on film, partly by accident, by a BBC camera crew that happened to be filming a different programme nearby. The footage is the entire reason this innings is remembered with such precision.

Ravi Shastri, 1985

Seventeen years later, in a Ranji Trophy match in Bombay (now Mumbai), the future India coach Ravi Shastri repeated the feat off Tilak Raj of Baroda. Shastri ended the innings with 200 not out, scored from 113 balls. The over also took him to the fastest double-century in first-class cricket at the time. Shastri reportedly walked off the field, drank a lassi, and told his teammates the bowler had been "very generous." The six-sixes-in-an-over scoring sequence is a key reason the Six Sixes Challenge in SweepSix is built around exactly six balls.

Herschelle Gibbs, 2007

The first time it happened in international cricket: Herschelle Gibbs of South Africa, batting against the Netherlands in the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup at St Kitts. The bowler was Daan van Bunge. South Africa were chasing 222. Gibbs made it look like a net session. Each six cleared a different part of the ground. By the end of the over, the South African dressing room was on its feet and a spectator had received an unexpected souvenir to take home. Gibbs walked away with a US$1 million prize attached to the achievement at that World Cup, sponsored by Johnnie Walker.

Yuvraj Singh, 2007

Three months after Gibbs, on 19 September 2007, the over that defined modern T20 cricket arrived. The venue was Kingsmead, Durban. The match was India versus England in the inaugural ICC World Twenty20. The bowler was Stuart Broad, then 21 and three years into his international career. The batsman was Yuvraj Singh, on the back of a verbal exchange with Andrew Flintoff at the end of the previous over.

The first ball: pulled to deep mid-wicket. The second: deposited over square leg. The third: lofted straight back over Broad's head. The fourth: smashed through the covers. The fifth: clobbered over long-on. The sixth: launched flat over deep mid-wicket again. Yuvraj had also reached the fastest fifty in the history of international T20 cricket, in 12 balls, a record that stood for over a decade. India went on to win the tournament. Stuart Broad went on to take 600 Test wickets and apparently never quite forgot the over.

Ross Whiteley, 2017

The first six sixes in T20 franchise cricket. Worcestershire's Ross Whiteley took it off Karl Carver of Yorkshire in a Vitality Blast match at New Road in 2017. The over took Worcestershire to 227 and was played in fading evening light to a crowd that simply could not process what was happening over six balls.

Kieron Pollard, 2021

The first West Indian to hit six sixes in a T20 international. Pollard's victims were Sri Lanka and the bowler was the leg-spinner Akila Dananjaya, who, brutally, had taken a hat-trick the over before. Cricket can be a cruel sport. Pollard's six sixes, scored at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua, also matched Yuvraj's record for the fastest fifty in T20I cricket.

Why It Stays Rare

You might think six sixes should be more common in modern cricket given how huge bats and short boundaries have become. The reason it stays rare is that bowlers in T20s tend to vary length, slip in slower balls, and target yorkers when they sense panic. Hitting six in a row requires the bowler to err six straight times, the batsman to time six straight times, and no fielder to actually hold a catch on the boundary. Three independent failures in a row are unlikely. Six is genuinely improbable.

Try It Yourself

The Six Sixes Challenge in SweepSix is a daily mode that gives every player exactly six legal balls. The objective is simple: hit them all for six. The global leaderboard resets each day so the entire community is competing on the same conditions. The full guide is at the Six Sixes Challenge Guide.

Related reading: Six Sixes Challenge Guide, How Cricket Scoring Works, Cricket Terminology Glossary.