Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

103 The Record That Never Was, and Other Fascinating Facts AT one time Hornby was in the Guinness Book of Records for scoring the most runs – ten – off a single ball. But it never happened. The story retailed in a contemporaneous newspaper report said the incident occurred when he was facing James Street in the Surrey v Lancashire match at The Oval in July 1873. It was repeated by no less a statistical guru than Bill Frindall. In fact, Hornby actually scored ten in one four-ball over with four, nought, two and four.   Just to clear up the matter once and for all, I reproduce a letter, written by the cricket author Gerald Brodribb, from the Spring 1994 issue of The Cricket Statistician , which appeared under the heading, The Hornby Hit . Brodribb wrote: I first became aware of this alleged hit for ‘ten’ in Frindall’s 1986 edition of Cricket Record s page 146. I then looked up Bell’s Life for an account of this match: Lancashire v Surrey at The Oval, July 14, 15, 16, 1873. A quote from Bell’s Life reads: ‘Street bowled the second over. Mr Hornby dashed away at Street’s first delivery, making no less than ten runs from it.’ That’s all. There was no mention of such a hit in James Lillywhite’s Cricketers Annual [’Red Lilly’] for 1874, page 69. The match scores were: Lancashire 100 and 115, Surrey 33 and 76. Rain affected conditions for Surrey. The next thing to do was to look up the actual scorebook. I found this at Old Trafford. Hornby’s scores were: 1st innings 20 1,4,2,4,2,1,1,3,2 2nd innings 13 2,3,2,1,2,3 I can only suggest that the ten in Bell’s Life was an error for four and the comments ‘no less than’ suggests that it was either a rare boundary hit, or an all-run hit for four. All this shows how necessary it is to check original scorebooks (wherever possible).