Boult joins classic clangers club

Black Caps paceman Trent Boult has joined the likes of Steve Harmison, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Johnson and Dale Steyn with a contender for cricket’s wildest delivery at Headingley on Sunday.

Boult was bowling to Stuart Broad early on the third day of the second Test when the ball slipped out of his hand and flew away to the leg-side boundary for five runs.

The quick finished with 2-98 despite the slip up as both teams scored 350 in their first innings, but Boult’s wide was one of the lighter talking points of the day as the quick joined some of his contemporaries with the classic clanger.

Aussie pair Mitchell Johnson and Pat Cummins have both been guilty of their own wildly off-target deliveries in the past six months, while South Africa paceman Steyn was also sensationally off target against the West Indies, sending a delivery straight to the fine-leg boundary.

Steyn took to social media on Sunday, welcoming Boult ‘to the club’ on Twitter. 

On New Year’s Day, Sydney Thunder’s Gurinder Sandhu produced a bowling clanger in the KFC T20 Big Bash League when the ball accidentally slipped out of his right hand and pitched well wide of the WACA wicket, prompting BBL commentator Damien Fleming to compare the delivery to a ten-pin bowling gutter ball.

Perhaps the most famous bowling clanger of all was the work of England quick Harmison, who attracted attention around the globe for his wild opening ball of the 2006-07 Ashes in Brisbane, which flew wide of the batting crease and into the hands of Andrew Flintoff at second slip.