Highest recorded instances of runs scored off a single delivery

Clint McKay to Travis Birt – 20 runs

Travis Birt made Clint McKay the reluctant record holder for the worst ever outcome of a single delivery

The threat of rain and DRS calculations is always to make things go crazy, and in this 2012/13 Big Bash League match between Hobart Hurricanes and Melbourne Stars, things went ballistic. 20 runs were scored off one delivery, the record for most runs scored off a ball in any format of top level competitive cricket.

Melbourne had put up a strong total in excess of 200, and Travis Birt was in no mood to beat around the bush. In the fifth over, with the Hobart score wavering below the par score as rain clouds loomed, Birt let loose some heavy destruction towards Clint McKay.

Three consecutive sixes were hit in the over, with two of them being no balls. Birt reached his fifty in that over, off 22 balls. Ironically, the next legal delivery that McKay could bowl produced Birt’s wicket, an attempt at a pull shot resulting in a big bottom edge rolling the ball onto the stumps. The historically terrible over that produced 28 runs in total – 0, 4, 4, 6, 6nb, 6nb, W, 0

Ironically, rain never came down, and Melbourne won the match by 19 runs after a late collapse from Hobart saw the lower order fail to connect bat with ball.