Flashback: The only batsman to hit a six off the first ball of a Test match

We know Test cricket is a format in which batsmen are quite conservative in their approach particularly in the first few overs. However, do you know, who is the only batsman to hit a six off the first ball of a test match? He is the West Indies great Chris Gayle who has broken ample records in T20 cricket.

This happened in the 2012 Test match played between West Indies and Bangladesh at Mirpur. West Indies won the toss and opted to bat first in this game. Bangladesh handed a debut to Sohag Gazi, an off-spinner who had a big responsibility in the spin department.

The debutant got the new ball against the West Indies openers and was ready to bowl the opening ball of the Test match.

The Windies opener Chris Gayle hadn’t called himself the Universe Boss at the time but was surely among the most explosive batsmen of that time.  And so a debutant was not a big challenge to face for the left-hander.

But very few people anticipated what would happen in the very first ball. Chris Gayle smacked the very first ball of the Test for a six and created a history. He became the first-ever batter to achieve the unique milestone in the longest format of the game. 18 runs came off the over as Gayle and West Indies were off to a flier.

In the fifth over of the game, it was time for Gazi to return the favour and he dismissed the left-hander on the last ball. Gayle got out after scoring 24 runs off 17 balls including 2 fours and 2 sixes. At one juncture, West Indies had lost their first three wickets for 106 runs.

From there, Kieron Powell, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Denesh Ramdin played brilliant knocks to power the team total to 527/4. Chanderpaul smashed a wonderful double hundred scoring 203 runs off 372 runs. Ramdin and Powell also hit fine centuries in the innings. West Indies eventually won this game by 77 runs with some great bowling efforts in the fourth innings.