West Indian Chris Gayle took a sudden liking to a poor Matthew Hoggard in a disastrous over bowled by him at The Oval in the fourth and final Test. Forced to suffer the ignominy of following-on West Indies were undoubtedly very furious and Gayle soon took out his fury off Matthew Hoggard hitting him for six fours in a single over.

Gayle, in the process, became first batsman ever to hit every ball of an over for a four in Test cricket.

Though India's Sandeep Patil had also hit six fours in Bob Willis' one over at Manchester in 1982, one of them was hit off a no-ball with one ball not scored off. It was, however, the third time in Test cricket history a player hit every ball of an over to the boundary.

New Zealand's Craig McMillan was the first batsman to have performed this feat as he hit five fours and a six off Younis Khan at Hamilton in 2000-01. Fellow teammate and skipper Brian Lara became the second batsman to perform this feat when he hit four fours and two sixes off South African Robin Peterson at Johannesburg in 2003-04.

Most boundary shots off consecutive balls in an over:

Six
Craig McMillan (NZ) off Younis Khan (Pak) at Hamilton in 2000-01
Brian Lara (WI) off Robin Peterson (SA) at Johannesburg in 2003-04
Chris Gayle (WI) off Matthew Hoggard (Eng) at The Oval in 2004

Five
Denis Lindsay (SA) off Johnny Gleeson (Aus) at Port Elizabeth in 1969-70
Rodney Redmond (NZ) off Majid Khan (Pak) at Auckland in 1972-73
David Hookes (Aus) off Tony Greig (Eng) at Melbourne in 1976-77
Krish Srikkanth (Ind) off Bob Holland (Aus) at Sydney in 1985-86
Mohammad Azharuddin (Ind) off Lance Klusener (SA) at Calcutta in 1996-97
Marcus Trescothick (Eng) off Mkhaya Ntini (SA) at Birmingham in 2003

Not even Gayle's six fours in an over took him top of this particular list of batsmen scoring most runs in a single over in Test cricket. There have now been twelve instances of 24 or more runs being scored off a single over.

However only a few are as simple and straightforward as Gayle's with most of the instances needing detailed explanations about questions of eight and six-ball overs, overs including extras, no-balls which at the time were not debited against the bowler and other such items.

To make things plain and simple, let us limit ourselves to only those instances when 24 or more runs were scored in an over without any help from extras.

The maximum runs scored in one eight ball over are 25. New Zealand's Bert Sutcliffe and Bob Blair hit South African spinner Hugh Tayfield for so many runs at Johannesburg in 1953-54.

Apart from Gayle, eight other players have hit 24 runs in six-ball over. They are West Indian Andy Roberts and Brian Lara, Sandeep Patil and Kapil Dev of India, England's Ian Botham, New Zealand's Ian Smith and Craig McMillan and Pakistan's Yousuf Youhana.

Most runs in a single over in Test cricket:

Eight-ball over

25 (66061600)
Bert Sutcliffe & Bob Blair (NZ) off Hugh Tayfield (SA) at Jo'burg in 1953-54

24 (2x6,3x4)
John Morrison (NZ) off Imran Khan (Pak) at Karachi in 1976-77

Six-ball over

28 (466444)
Brian Lara (WI) off Robin Peterson (SA) at Jo'burg in 2003-04

26 (444464)
Craig McMillan (NZ) off Younis Khan (Pak) at Hamilton in 2000-01

24 (462660)
Andy Roberts (WI) off Ian Botham (Eng) at Port-of-Spain in 1980-81

24 (4440444)
Sandeep Patil (Ind) off Bob Willis (Eng) at Manchester in 1982

24 (464604)
Ian Botham (Eng) off Derek Stirling (NZ) at The Oval in 1986

24 (006666)
Kapil Dev (Ind) off Eddie Hemmings (Eng) at Lord's in 1990

24 (244266)
Ian Smith (NZ) off Atul Wassan (Ind) at Auckland in 1989-90

24 (444426)
Yousuf Youhana (Pak) off Nicky Boje (SA) at CapeTown in 2002-03

24 (444444)
Chris Gayle (WI) off Matthew Hoggard (Eng) at The Oval in 2004

A leg-bye came off Botham's last ball, thus 25 runs were made in the over

The third ball of Willis' over was a no-ball, however it was not debited against the bowler's analysis as per the rules prevailing at that time.

There has been one more instance of 25 runs scored in one over. England's Andrew Caddick was carted for so many runs in the Christchurch Test against New Zealand in 2001-02, but only 23 runs came off the bat of Nathan Astle and Chris Cairns. There was a dot ball in that over and Caddick bowled a no-ball off which one leg-bye was taken. As a result two runs were added in the total.

The world record for most runs in an over is held jointly by West Indian allrounder Garfield Sobers and Indian batsman Ravi Shastri, who both scored six consecutive sixes in first class matches.