A cracker of a ball: Excitement peaked on the fourth day of the third Test between Australia and England last Sunday on December 17, 2017 when a Mitchell Starc delivery hit a crack and deviated sharply to crash into James Vince’s stumps. It was 4.06 p.m. local time in Perth and Aussie legend Shane Warne in the commentary box immediately called it the “ball of the Ashes...” Going one up on him, former England captain Michael Vaughan hailed it as the “ball of the century.”
While that comment will be debated for days amid the controversy over the pitch, Wasim Akram, one of the most deceptive left-arm swing bowlers in his day, weighed in with this: “That’s called a Jaffa! What a delivery...” A day later, Australia had won back the Ashes. The “ball of the 20th century” was said to have been bowled by Warne in 1993 at Old Trafford when he flummoxed England veteran Mike Gatting with a ball that pitched outside leg stump spun in and hit the off stump.