Cricket doesn’t do perfect. Darts, golf and snooker do. The nine-darter, hole-in-one and 147 break cannot be bettered.
But cricket is largely a game of failure. There are always more runs to be scored, always more wickets to take.
Sydney-based Cameron Nupier disagrees. Because, on 25 August 2007, he played arguably cricket’s ‘perfect’ game.
Turning out as an overseas professional for Hornchurch Cricket Club in Essex, Nupier made an unbeaten century, guiding his team to 258 for eight declared, and then took all ten wickets to single-handedly win the match for his side.
He is believed to be the only player in the history of the sport to have managed the feat.
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“I could speak for hours about it,” Nupier said. “Everyone has the opportunity to do it every week, right? And it doesn’t happen.”
There is one other occasion in history when in a first-class match played over two innings the record has been achieved, but Nupier did it in one. We also know that in the professional one-day game, it has never been managed and no amount of scouring turns up historical accounts of it occurring in the club game. If you happen to know otherwise, please get in touch. Nupier needs a friend to relate to.
A talented youngster, he played for Australia U15s, New South Wales U19s and made his way over to England with desires of becoming a professional cricketer. Essex were interested, and Nupier recalls one conversation with England and Essex legend Graham Gooch, where Gooch said he would sign him in a heartbeat. But, by Nupier’s own admission, “I just couldn’t get on the pitch enough.”
The lowlights and highlights of his career are housed in the same folder at home. “Because I’ve had so many injuries, I’ve got a gazillion X-rays,” Nupier explained, leafing through the various stress fracture scans he’s collected over the years.
Housed in the middle of them, in pristine condition, is the scorecard from that day in 2007. “I remember running in,” Nupier recalled of taking, what he thinks, was the final exhausted wicket. “And my body was almost just floating and my arm went over. There was nothing on it, deadset, my 10-year-old child would be bowling faster.”
Specific cricketing memories are bizarre. Nupier recalls the details of the ground that day – that it had one short boundary and one long; that it was hot; a few moments of his batting partnership with fellow Aussie Kym Beazleigh who played for Essex second XI, but little of the exact wickets and runs. In his defence, there were a lot of them – 114 unbeaten runs and then 17 overs in a row. “I still remember a few of the shots in my head. But mainly I remember us getting skittled a little bit and having to recover.”
Remarkably, during Hornchurch’s innings, all eight of their wickets to fall also went to the same bowler – another Australian marked down as a J. Weber on the scorecard. “The whole match was Aussies,” Nupier said with a smile.
When it came to his turn with the ball, Nupier ran through the opponent’s top order, before the focus switched to the potential for history that was on the horizon.
“I think after about seven or eight wickets I was like, ‘I’m done.’ I couldn’t bowl properly, but the guys were like, ‘keep going!’ I hadn’t really thought of the ten-fer because it just doesn’t happen, right?”
Tactics of bowling rubbish from the other end to allow Nupier to complete the set were never considered, but everyone knew what was happening. Finally, with his 102nd ball of the day, Nupier claimed the tenth and final wicket. “I remember being exhausted, happy,” he said of walking off. “I didn’t have the energy anymore… but I had to buy the beers after.”
The fixture, played between Nupier’s Hornchurch CC and Shenfield CC, was in the Essex Premier League, the highest level of amateur cricket in the country, and consisted of high-quality players on either side.
“I’m looking at the scorecard,” Nupier said, “And the guy who opened the bowling with me played for Essex as well, so he was a good bowler.”
Nupier spent four years at Hornchurch after they pinched him from a rival club, and a copy of the scorecard from that day remains on the wall in the clubhouse all these years later. Nupier has been back on a couple of occasions when visiting the UK for weddings.
“It’s nice that they’re still recognising what happened,” Nupier, who did his builder’s licence after finishing in cricket, said.
“Regardless of whether I played ten years for Australia or came home to do what I do [now].
“It was like playing professional cricket for a club on a Saturday afternoon. And Hornchurch has a massive reputation for having the best teas outside of Lord’s. People would come on wet days just to have the spread.”
Nupier was a level above club cricket, and by the sounds of it – genuinely quick – but never ended up playing a professional game himself. Ask him who was the best player he played against and it’s a long list of names, of everyone you’ve already heard of. He thinks he might have got Kevin Pietersen out once, but he can’t really remember.
The online scorecard of that day erroneously lists it as his dad Grant Nupier who achieved the feat rather than him, a fact that elicits a wry smile and a shrug from Cameron.
“I’d love to know if anyone else has done it,” Nupier concluded.
“Like, what are the odds? To get all ten, literally everything has to go right.
“But then again, I love my golf, and I can’t get a hole in one to save my life.”
Photograph by Alamy