Shastri’s six sixes and all that

10 things you may not know about birthday boy Ravi’s 1985 feat, achieved at the Wankhede Stadium in January 1985

1
Tilak Raj, the Baroda bowler whom Mumbai’s Ravi Shastri hit for six sixes in an over in a West Zone League Ranji Trophy game in January 1985, encountered Shastri seven years prior, when they played in a West Zone vs North Zone Cooch Behar Trophy game at Eden Gardens, Kolkata in 1977-78.

2
Tilak Raj was the eighth bowler used by Baroda skipper Kiran More in both innings of the match in which Shastri hit his six sixes.

3
Delhi’s Mohinder Amarnath played for Baroda in that season. He scored 88 and 22 in that game against Bombay.

4
Only one journalist was fortunate to witness Garfield Sobers’ six sixes for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan at Swansea in 1968 as well as Shastri’s feat at Wankhede Stadium in 1985 — the late Dicky Rutnagur.

5
There were five specialist openers in that Bombay team for that game - captain Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Ghulam Parkar, Shishir Hattangadi and Lalchand Rajput. But the last two mentioned walked out to open in the second innings in which Shastri experienced glory.
Hattangadi opened with Parkar in the first innings. 

6
Apart from Ravi Shastri, Bombay had another left-arm spinner in their playing XI - Ravi Thakkar, who bowled only nine overs in the first innings and none in the second. 

7
Ravi Shastri, who ended up with an unbeaten 200 on the final day, reached his first hundred in just 80 balls (9x4, 4x6).

8
Ravi Shastri’s mother Lakshmi was unaware about her son’s six-sixes-in-one-over feat simply because he didn’t inform her when he got home. She heard it later in the evening from a bhel puri seller in Mahim.

9
Ravi Shastri first-class wickets tally reached 200 in this match 

10
There was no looking back for Ravi Shastri after this personal high. In the next Ranji Trophy game he was part - three months later - he bowled Mumbai to victory over old rivals Delhi to win the 1984-85 national championship on the same ground.

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