Matt Parkinson on his ball of the century contender
Lancashire legspinner’s jaffa went viral on Friday and earned him praise from Shane Warne
Matt Parkinson, the Lancashire legspinner, became a social-media star on Friday after bowling a ball-of-the-century contender to Northamptonshire’s Adam Rossington in a County Championship fixture at Old Trafford, the delivery evoking memories of Shane Warne’s dismissal of Mike Gatting at the same ground in 1993.
It didn’t take long for the split-screen comparison to emerge…
… or for the plaudits to start flooding in.
By Saturday morning, Warne himself had given it his seal of approval.
Parkinson had come into the game following a frustrating winter, spending three months in England’s bio-secure bubbles in Sri Lanka and India without getting on to the field.
He said that he wanted to “prove a point” after missing out on selection for Lancashire’s first game of the season, and that after being hit for a couple of boundaries by Simon Kerrigan, his former team-mate, he had thought: “Sack it, I’m going to try and rip it.”
Needless to say, it was a plan that worked pretty well.
