The 2001 C&G Trophy Final at Lord's should have been the biggest day of Scott Boswell's career. Instead, it became a comedy of errors that haunted him forever. The Leicestershire fast bowler, who had actually taken 5 wickets in the semi-final and earned his place on merit, completely lost the plot on the grand stage. It was as if the enormity of the occasion had reached into his brain and unplugged something essential.
Boswell's first over at Lord's set the tone — he bowled wides that went so far from the batsman they nearly hit the square leg umpire. His line and length were so erratic that wicketkeeper Paul Nixon was doing splits and star jumps just trying to stop the ball from going for byes. One delivery went so wide that it was closer to the next pitch than to the batsman it was aimed at. The crowd, initially sympathetic, couldn't help but laugh as delivery after delivery sailed in directions that had nothing to do with the batsman.
His bowling was a masterclass in spray painting. Left side, right side, full, short — every delivery seemed to be aimed at a different postcode. It was as if his arm had developed independent consciousness and decided to bowl to an entirely imaginary set of stumps positioned roughly where the slip cordon would normally stand. Somerset's batsmen barely had to move their feet — the ones they could reach were hit for four, and the ones they couldn't reach went to the boundary off the wicketkeeper's gloves.
His final figures were nightmarish — he went for over 70 runs from his 10 overs at an economy rate that looked more like a telephone number. Somerset won comfortably. Boswell's performance became the benchmark for bad bowling on big occasions, and "doing a Boswell" briefly entered cricket slang for delivering the worst performance of your life on the biggest stage. To his credit, Boswell fronted up to the media afterwards, but the damage was done — his Lord's final would be remembered, just not in the way he'd dreamed.