When Yorkshire all-rounder Richard Pyrah conceded 12 off his last delivery to hand a tie to Northamptonshire, it proved once again that cricket was the same game from village green upwards. Everyone could make fools of themselves.

At Northampton the result looked in the bag for Yorkshire when Nicky Boje faced Pyrah for the last ball of their Twenty20 Cup match in 2010. Only a no-ball could possibly prevent a Yorkshire victory -- and that is what happened to the undisguised glee of the home crowd. Boje hit that for six, plus two runs as an extra in this competition, and the final ball was smashed to leg for four. Fortunately for Pyrah it didn't carry for six.

The same fate befell Graeme Aldridge, the Northern Districts seamer, in January 2007 when his last ball turned into a waist-high full toss to Andre Adams in a Twenty20 match at Hamilton. With Auckland needing 12 to win, that delivery was hit for four, with two added runs, and the extra ball was struck sweetly by Adams for six.

David Saker, England and ex-Victoria bowling coach: "The art of swing bowling in Australia is lost to a degree. There are still a few natural swing bowlers, but because the technical coaches have come around and changed so many parts of technique it’s actually stopped a lot of people swinging the ball."

Wisden Cricketer June 2010

On the eve of another World Twenty20, Sir Ian Botham is worried for cricket’s soul, telling BBC Five Live: "We had one in June in England, now there is another one in the Caribbean – it’s greed." When ‘Sir’ Allen Stanford launched his ill-fated $20 million match in 2008, Botham stood behind Stanford and a plastic case full of cash. At that time, with the victorious team set to pocket $1 million each, Botham said: "It’s a real bonus for the players and one they should just go out there and enjoy ... What an opportunity for some of these guys."

Wisden Cricketer newletter, April 2010

Karachi Blues were given a surprise when two Bahawalpur teams arrived to play a first class match against them in the Quaid-e-Azan Trophy. Their opponents were representing different factions of their warring Association, with both sets of players determined to honour the fixture at the start of the 1997/98 season against the future champions.

Incredibly four years previously Blues had been awarded the match against Bahawalpur when nobody turned up. From famine to feast.

When watching one of the frequent television repeats of the film Four Weddings and a Funeral , cricket lovers should pay special attention to the father of the punchy bride in the final wedding scene, the actor Rupert Webb. He kept wicket for Sussex in 256 matches from 1948.

Sachin Tendulkar hit the first international one-day double-hundred to set up a big India victory over South Africa at Gwalior on Feb 24 2010, and The Wisden Cricketer quickly jumped in with a witty slant in their newsletter, commiserating with an obscure Zimbabwean:

"In what might one day be seen as the greatest miscarriage of justice in cricket history, all-time great Charles Coventry saw his world record one-day international score of 194 not out pushed down to second place by some Indian no-mark who is not fit to stand in his shadow. Fans of the Zimbabwean master will be appalled that his crackerjack innings against Bangladesh has now been overshadowed by this guy Sachin Tendulkar, who made 200 not out against South Africa yesterday. Coventry’s 194 is the only time he has passed 100 in a one-day international. Tendulkar has taken 46 one-day international hundreds to better that score. Rubbish."

Shaun Tait bowled the fastest ball on Australian soil when he reached 100.4mph in Twenty20 international against Pakistan at Melbourne this month. The South Australia paceman then announced he would be chasing Shoaib Akhtar's speedgun best of 100.8mph during the 2003 World Cup. Coaches regard speedgun rivalry as an unwelcome distraction, and Angus Fraser cites England team-mate Darren Gough as an amusing example. When a batsman has cover-driven Gough for four, television cameras might pick up the Yorkshireman looking in the opposite direction with a smile... at his speedgun figure.

The first cricket match in beautiful Slovenia took place in 1997 when a group of expatriates scraped together a side to give the touring Royal Hague CC a fixture on their Balkans tour. They cheekily asked the President of Slovenia, Milan Kucan, for his support, and to their surprise he attended the match. After he had been briefed on how cricket terminology had entered the English language, he commented: "Oh, so you might say the American attitude to our application to join NATO is not quite cricket." Whether one of Europe's great statesmen ever used his new vocabulary in subsequent speeches is not known.

Wisden Almanack 1998

How can a professional bowler possibly concede 12 runs off the final delivery to lose a match? Such a happening is so unlikely, but Graeme Aldridge, of Northern Districts, succeeded in January 2007. One of New Zealand's leading seamers, Aldridge managed to deliver a waist-high full toss to Andre Adams in a Twenty20 match at Hamilton when Auckland needed 12 to win. That was hit for four, with two added runs for the no-ball, and the extra ball was struck sweetly for six. In November 2009 Aldridge helped wicketkeeper Peter McGlashan by supplying half the wickets in a world record 12 catches in a first class match, against Central Districts at Whangarei, but he must cringe at any mention of his 2007 Seddon Park gaffe. He followed the Hamilton embarrassment with a modest season for Kendal in the Northern Premier League that summer.