Modern-day cricket matches are incomplete without big-hitters who possess prodigious ability of hitting towering sixes in the limited over formats. Unlike the approach in earlier times in the game, the modern-day cricket has witnessed drastic evolution from it’s past. The demand for going for big hits in the modern-day game has seen a huge upsurge in the past decade. Though exquisite touches and timings to score runs is still highly regarded and is considered as the primary demand of every current and aspiring cricketers, the demand of toning the balls to the stands when required has got added to it. So, we know that almost all the batsmen possess that ability to clear the fence but shockingly there have also been batters who failed to clear the fence in their whole ODI career. Here, in the upcoming list, we will go through the list of the batsmen who failed to clear the fence even once in their whole ODI career.
5) Callum Ferguson – The stylish right-handed batter from Australia represented the baggy greens in 30 ODIs and scored 663 runs at an impressive 41.43 average. He made his debut for the Aussies versus New Zealand in 2009 and played his career’s only test match against South Africa. The striking feature in Ferguson’s 30 matches’ ODI career is that he has never been able to clear the fence directly even once in his whole ODI career, even though he has a strike rate of over 85 in every 100 balls. Between 2009 to 2011 he represented his nation and since 2011 he had never been considered in theAustralian national team.
4) Manoj Prabhakar – He remained in the shadow of the Kapil Dev for the major part of his career and though he wasn’t even close to as stirring as Kapil Dev used to be, but one has to admit that he has got quite an impressive career. Primarily, a bowler who can be very impactful with bat, Prabhakar had played the role of supporting Kapil Dev over the years to perfection. He had been able to represent India 39 times in tests and 130 ODIs in his 12 years’ International career. In the 98 ODI innings that Prabhakar played, he scored close to 1900 runs at an average of 24.1 with two centuries and 11 half-centuries. What’s strange is that he never managed to hit even a single six in his whole limited over career. As a bowler, his wickets tally consists of 96 in tests and 157 wickets in ODIs.
3) Geoffrey Boycott – The former English cricketer is one of the best batsmen that English cricket has ever witnessed but only in test cricket. The Yorkshire man had scored more than 8000 runs at a staggering average of 47.7 in his long test career. But when the ODI format was introduced in 1971, he failed to replicate his brilliance in this newborn ODI format. In his whole ODI career, he only managed to play 36 matches for the English team and scored 1082 runs at an average of 36. Boycott though is often known for his exploits in test format failed in ODIs terribly as he couldn’t manage to hit even a single six in this format and also his 53.56 strike rate was too low to be considered as decent in this format.
2) Thilan Samaraweera – Samaraweera was one of the best batsmen for the Sri Lankan team in the 2000s. He played the supporting role of the Lankan legends like Kumar Sangakkara and Jayawardene perfectly. He scored close to 5500 test runs in 81 matches at an average of close to 49. But he was terrible in all aspects that ODI cricket demands. Though he has got a couple of good knocks in this format but overall he had been pretty mediocre as he scored only 862 runs in 42 innings without hitting even a single six. It’s hard to think that a 21st -century batsman cum a tailender failed to hit even a single six in his 42 innings ODI career, but Samaraweera made the unimaginable happen.
1) Dion Ebrahim – Dion Ebrahim consistently held his place in the Zimbabwean national team for more than 4 years and has played quite a few good knocks for his team especially in tests. But his inability to score quick runs was his biggest flaw, as his strike rate of 57 in ODIs was too less. He did not manage to hit even a single six throughout his whole International which is quite surprising because he is probably the only batsman to achieve this unique feat of not hitting even a single six in the whole International career.
