BRETT Lee's huge six into orbit over the Gabba yesterday almost cleaned up former Test paceman Carl Rackemann and his three-year-old daughter beyond the grandstands.
The new stands aren't the impenetrable wall of seats and concrete they appear because Lee's legside blast threaded between the scoreboard and the end of the northern stand's top deck.
The ball clattered between Rackemann and daughter Madeleine as they held hands on the concrete concourse before bouncing on to the netting above the practice wickets.
"I felt like the mayor of Hiroshima. Six inches either way and the ball would have caused some real damage," a relieved Rackemann said of the bombardment.
The massive strike represented a carry of about 98m, with the first 70m clearing the boundary and the remainder taking the ball to where it bounced before coming to rest on top of the practice nets.
Rackemann couldn't resist rating the six as one of the biggest at the Gabba since India's Kirti Azad lofted a Trevor Hohns' leg-break over the old Clem Jones Stand into Stanley St in the 1980s.
Biggest six at the ground? Glenn Trimble's straight drive over the old stands into the convenience store car park on Vulture St takes some beating. And West Indian great Vic Richards slammed a huge six off Ashley Mallett out of the ground to the Stanley St end in the early 1970s.
Channel 9 commentator and former Australia keeper Ian Healy, who has been a Gabba regular as a spectator, player and media representative for more than 25 years, claimed it was the biggest six he had seen at the ground.
Blows of similar magnitude have been struck by New Zealand's prolific six-hitter Chris Cairns, Queensland middle-order star Andrew Symonds and former Tasmanian batsman Scott Hookey.
Cairns and Symonds both struck the ball on to the second tier of the newly developed stand, while Hookey, in the late 1980s, lifted a straight drive over the Clem Jones Stand into Vulture St.
Though he is struggling to penetrate as a Test match bowler, Lee continues to develop as a batsman with his innings of 47 yesterday helping Australia to an impressive total of 435 against the Windies.
- ROBERT CRADDOCK and JIM TUCKER