00:00The most expensive over in professional cricket's history is not 36 or 38 but 77 runs.
00:06Here's what happened.
00:07Wellington and Canterbury were playing against each other in February 1990
00:11and Wellington needed to win to ensure they secured the title.
00:14Wellington set a fourth inning's target of 291 runs for Canterbury to chase in 56 overs.
00:20Canterbury's batting collapsed and they were reduced to 108 for 8.
00:24However, Wellington could not dismiss the 9th wicket
00:27and with Canterbury's score at 196 for 8 and 2 overs remaining,
00:32the match seemed to be heading towards a draw.
00:35The Wellington team then hatched a plan and thought
00:38if they gave enough loose balls to Canterbury and somehow got them closer to the target,
00:43Canterbury might risk their last two wickets going for glory.
00:47So Bert Vance, a New Zealand batter who was nearing retirement
00:51and had no bowling figures to worry about, started bowling.
00:54Vance proceeded to bowl a succession of no balls and of his first 17 deliveries,
00:59only one, the second, was legitimate.
01:02Full toss after full toss was lobbed down from 2 or 3 yards down the track.
01:06Lee Germont, the Canterbury batter, brought up his 100 off the 6th ball
01:11and in all, he took 70 of the over, including 8 sixes and 5 fours.
01:15Roger Ford faced two balls midway through the carnage and scored 5.
01:19The real problems, however, were off the pitch,
01:22where the bewildered scorers and scoreboard operators lost track of what was happening
01:27and at one point resorted to consulting with spectators to try to resolve the chaos.
01:32Even the umpire was left bewildered,
01:34only allowing 5 legitimate deliveries before calling an end to proceedings.
01:39The penultimate over had gone for 77. The drama did not end there.
01:44Nobody knew but Canterbury needed 18 of the last over
01:47and Lee Germont scored 17 of the first 5 balls, levelling the scores.
01:51But with the scoreboard rendered inactive as the scorers still battled to make sense of fances over,
01:56Ford blocked the last delivery of the match and the match was drawn.
02:00Only when the players returned to their changing rooms did the position become clear.
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