Moment Illingworth St Mary's cricketer's shot ends in disaster

Asif Ali was batting for Illingworth St Mary’s Cricket Club in their Halifax Cricket League cup match against Sowerby St Peter’s CC at the weekend.

He was at the crease in the 37th over when he hit the slog to the square leg boundary, catching the ball sweetly as it soared through the air.

Ali watched on from the crease but rather than a fist pump in celebration of the fine strike, his head was in his hands as the ball smashed through the back window of his Vauxhall Zafira.

Asif Ali's smashed rear window. Pic: Illingworth St Mary's CC/Facebook

The crowd while at first in admiration of the short exclaimed “Oooooh” as the ball could be heard crashing through the window.

The calls from spectators quickly turned to laughter as people realised that Asif had put the ball through the window of his own car, while the batsmen was down on his haunches as he realised what had happened.

The Sowerby bowler and wicketkeeper both couldn’t help but see the funny side of the incident, and even Asif glanced over to the crowd with a sheepish smile on his face, taking what had happened in a light-hearted manner.

Illingworth St Mary’s put a video of the incident, which can be seen below, captioned “That moment when you hit a massive six only for it crash through your own car windscreen” followed by crying laughing emojis, and the video has begun to spread online amongst the cricket community.

The incident also received a mention on the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show, with cricket-mad presenter Greg James playing an audio clip of the incident.

Asif, a married father of two, is currently unable to work in his job as a taxi driver due to the damage, which he hopes can be fixed soon.

The 38 year old said: "I drive for work so I obviously can't do that at the moment.

"I'm trying to get it fixed as quickly as possible so that I can get back to it but no one has been able to come out yet.

"Hopefully it will get fixed today or tomorrow. I've spoken to a few places and it will cost about £200 for a new one."

On the shot, a perfectly timed slog over the boundary, he said it "felt great".

"When I parked there before the game I thought it was a good place. I never even imagined I might end up getting hit with a shot - let alone my own.

"The shot felt great coming off my bat, I knew it was going to a big one.

"But as I saw it going towards the cars I said 'no, no, no'.

"I realised quite quickly that it was going to either my car or a white Mercedes next to me. Then the ball just smashed through the windscreen - I couldn't believe it.

"After that, it was really hard to focus on the game because I was thinking, 'what have I done? I've done it to my own car?' "I was in shock."

Asif said his wife and children, who were watching the match at home on a live stream "couldn't believe what I had done".

Despite losing the game and being left out of pocket, Asif said he could see the funny side.

He added: "I understand why people like the video, it's not something you see every day."