The big 6

Watching Shane Watson's mighty maximum to win the first ODI for Australia gave Fantasy Bob cause for thought.  FB is a great admirer of the work of the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard.  Stoppard has the great additional virtues of being a keen cricket fan and occasional player, wicketkeeping in various scratch literary XIs. 

Scene from The Real Thing

In his play The Real Thing there is the following speech.  It is spoken by a writer comparing a good script to a cricket bat.

This thing here, which looks like a wooden club, is actually several pieces of particular wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that the whole thing is sprung, like a dance floor. It’s for hitting cricket balls with. If you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you’ve done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly….......

This speech is celebrated by many critics for its use of a sporting metaphor to explain a creative act.   Fantasy Bob fully approves of this and he greatly enjoyed the play and many of Stoppard's other works, whether benefitting from cricket metaphors or not.

But Stoppard is talking about a big hit - a truly exceptional hit.   Is it possible?

Afridi puts another one into the stands

According to the record books, the furthest a cricket ball has been hit is 160 metres by Shahid Afridi off Andrew Symonds in 2005 at MCG.  (It didn't do Symonds much good since he took to drink shortly after.)  160 meters is 174 yards - a bit shy of Stoppard's example.  But the hang time of the ball is 4 seconds dead on.   FB reckons this makes the average ball speed through the air about 89 mph.  200 yards in 4 seconds is 102mph.  (FB is just waiting for someone to correct his arithmetic, although he used the highest quality back of envelop he had available).

But Stoppard's cricketing experience might be more in line with Fantasy Bob's rather than Afridi's.  So FB thought of his own 6 hitting.  And before you say 'Oh come on', it has been verified that FB hits the occasional six.  On a totally unscientific basis his biggest hit might be just over 80 yards and the hang time not much shorter than Afridi's - a speed of around 70mph.   Carlton players should think how big a hit it is to put the ball over the wall at the bottom end - just under 100 yards.  Afridi hit it over the wall, over the houses and then some.  And Stoppard's batter puts it further yet.

Is it possible - have we reached the limits of human achievement?  Or should we put it down to artistic licence?