Memory of another Melbourne Test between Australia and India, 1981

The Australian summer of 1980-81 was saddled with controversies. The worst of them all was on 1st Feb 1981, the date of 3rd final of Benson & Hedges World series cup. New Zealand needed 6 runs on the last ball of the match to tie the score and their No. 10 batsman, Brian McKechnie was walking out to bat, thinking that his chance to put the ball over the ropes being “One in thousand”. But, Greg Chappell, the Australian captain decided to shut that possibility as well. He walked up to the bowler and his brother, Trevor Chappell and asked, “How are you at bowling under-arms?”

“I don’t know,” Trevor said, “why?”

Greg responded, “Well, you’re about to find out”.

The rest was history. It was a delivery that shook the cricket world and in an unprecedented turn of events, Prime Minister of both the countries had to release public statements.

Just six days after the incident and when dust was yet to settle down, Australia met India in the Third test of the series at the same venue. And, Greg Chappell made one more blunder. Winning the toss, he decided to put India to bat first.

Throughout that summer, Greg was very vocal about the low bounce of the MCG pitch. He found out that the curators had taken some action and tried to add grass in the pitch. Unfortunately, they did not have enough time for the grass to be properly bound to the pitch. So, now, the pitch became even more unpredictable. Greg presumed that when the ball would land into the grassy part, it would jump up, otherwise, it would stay low. Greg did not want to take the first strike till the uneven bounce got settled down (eventually, as per him, that pitch played at two level of bounce – “Low and Very Low”).

For the better part of the first three days, the decision seemed to have gone well for Australia though. They bowled out India for 237 and then built up a massive lead of 182. With most of the batsmen of India horribly struggling against Australian fast bowlers in the series, the writing was very much on the wall for them.

In India’s first innings, the highlights were the century from Gundappa Viswanath (Vishy) and some great bowling from Lillee. Vishy was horribly out of touch for this entire tour and really needed some score. And, India needed him too as they were reduced to 115 for 6 on the first day. This was not the most fluent innings from Vishy. He somehow survived hostile Pascoe and got beaten by Lillee number of times. But, he flourished once the spinners (Yardley and Higgs) came to bowl.

Once he crossed 50, he started playing more and more confidently. A square cut of Lillee was fiercely played and finally, a cover drive from Higgs took him to a well-deserved hundred. The other highlight was bowling of Dennis Lillee. As the ball became older, he relied mostly on Leg cutters and what perfect deliveries they were. The ball would dart into the batsman, giving a false impression that it would be coming in, and then suddenly after pitching, it would cut away like a leg-spinner at the last moment. There was a spell from him, when Vishy and Kirmani could not even touch most of those deliveries. The reason was that those deliveries were just too good to nick.

India was not happy with the umpiring of Rex Whitehead again. After a couple of howlers at Adelaide in the previous match, he again gave Vishy out, when the ball seemed to have come off his pad and Yadav was given run-out while Jimmy Higgs looked like to have dislodged the ball with his elbow accidentally. Discontent in the Indian camp about Rex Whitehead’s decisions was growing.

In the Australian first innings, Allan Border played very well, especially against the spinners and scored a well-made 124. Chappell (76), Walters (78) and Marsh (45) all supported him well. And, a lead of 182 looked to be more than enough. India was further hampered by a number of injuries. Doshi had a fractured foot. Yadav’s toe was fractured (he could not bat) and it finally became worse when Kapil Dev had to leave the field due to a thigh injury and could not come on for 2 days.

However, India did not give up. Sunny and Chauhan batted with a lot of determination and, for the first time in the series, Sunny of old days seemed to have returned. They added 165 runs for the first wicket, when a Dennis Lillee delivery kept low and hit Sunny on the pad. Sunny was batting on 70 then and the umpire was again Rex Whitehead.

The moment the ball hit Sunny’s pads, he started showing his bat, indicating that it had hit his bat first. When the umpire raised his finger, he continued his vigorous protest by extending his arms and asking “What’s going on?” Lillee, who was ever so helpful, ran up to him and showed exactly where the ball hit him in the pad and showed two finger direction towards the pavilion.

Reluctantly, Sunny started walking off. But, after a few more steps, he heard Lillee comparing him with an organ of the female anatomy. Something snapped in his head. He turned back, went to Chauhan and asked him to leave the field along with him. Chauhan was not very sure. But, his captain almost shoved him towards the pavilion.

Lillee showing Sunny where the ball had hit the pad

The entire ground was bewildered. This was history in the making. No team had ever conceded any test match over some controversial decision. Voice of Richie Benaud in Channel 9 could be heard :

“Does this mean he is declaring? Is he forfeiting the match? Surely, NOT. Think about this, Sunny. Think about this”.

Better sense prevailed at last, as Indian team manager, Wing Commander Durrani, came to the gate, ushered Sunny in and asked Chauhan to go back along with the new batsman Vengsarkar.

Was that decision right or wrong? As per Lillee, there was no bat involved. He wrote in his Autobiography:

“Sunny was just frustrated as he had never scored runs against me and wanted to have a hundred in his name”.

Sunny always maintained that it was a clear inside edge. Replay was not very conclusive. Greg Chappell, who was standing at the first slip, was not in a position to get the view; however, his gut feeling was that ball would have hit the pad first.

However, irrespective of what happened, what Sunny did that day was not correct or acceptable. He has himself acknowledged it multiple times and mentioned this as “Unhappiest moment of my cricket career”. He said that he should have remembered, as a captain of the team, he had a greater responsibility to the game and the team. His team suffered due to this as well, especially, his opening partner.

Chetan Chauhan was striding towards his 100 before this. But, now, he lost his concentration and lobbed a simple catch to cover. Vengsarkar, Viswanath and Patil got into 30’s and 40’s. But, eventually, India could assemble 324. Yadav did not bat and Kapil appeared with a runner. But, he got bowled for a duck, while trying to slog Yardley. Australia needed just 143 runs, with little over one day of play remaining and India having just one fit bowler at their disposal. But, there was one hope. A couple of Indian batsmen got bowled when the ball kept so low that it almost rolled through the ground. Could it happen when Australia bat?

In the middle of the umpiring controversy, one Australian great achieved one more milestone in his life. With Sunil Gavaskar’s wicket, Dennis Lillee equalled Richie Benaud’s Australian record of 248 test wickets and with Chauhan’s wicket, he surpassed him.

The greatness of the master fast bowler could be realized from the fact that Benaud took 63 matches to reach there and Lillee went past him in just 48 test matches. In an endearing moment, after acknowledging the crowd’s applause, Lillee waved towards to the Channel-9 commentary box and Richie waved from there happily. He knew that record had been passed on to someone who would be considered as all time great.

Karshan Ghavri and Sandeep Patil opened the Indian bowling on the evening of the 4th day and, this time, India was benefited due to an umpiring error. John Dyson was declared caught down the leg side when the ball appeared to have brushed his pad, of Ghavri.

Greg Chappell was striding in at number 3 and Indians discussed that he might be bit vulnerable to short pitch bowling at the start of the innings. So, Ghavri tried a bouncer for the next ball. In Greg’s language (in his Autobiography), the ball was dropped at almost Ghavri’s feet and never rose from the ground. In reality, it kept low and shuffling Greg lost his leg stump.

Few overs later, Wood was stumped by Kirmani of Doshi and, all of a sudden, Australia was 24 for 3 at the end of 4th day’s play. That night, Sunny had a discussion with Kapil if he could possibly bowl on the next day. For the whole night, Kapil kept alarm for every two hours, woke up and swallowed pain Killers.

On the next morning, Kapil would bowl for 16 overs unchanged and took 5 for 28. He noticed that the ball was dying on the pitch from a particular spot. He intentionally delivered the ball from much behind the popping crease to hit the spot continuously. Pitch did the rest as most of his victims were bowled or LBW.

At the other end, Dilip Doshi bowled with a fractured foot, but did not give anything away. Under pressure, Australian batsmen made mistakes one after another. The end came just after lunch. Jimmy Higgs was plumb LBW to Kapil and Australia was all out for 83. It was the only third win for India in Australia and first against a full-strength Australian squad. It would be the first time ever an Indian team would go back undefeated from there.

The Indian dressing room was jubilant after the victory and Kapil Dev was seen to be sipping champagne for the first time. He regarded this bowling spell as one of the most satisfying of his career. “You don’t feel the pain when you win a test match” – he mentioned to Sydney Morning Herald about his injury. There was a telegram coming from Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi to Gavaskar, describing the victory as "dramatic".

There was a message from Australian Prime Minister Mr Malcolm Fraser to Sunny as well, thanking him to make this an “Indian Summer”. In the truest sense, Australians dominated the series for 11 out of 13 day’s cricket. But, defending such a low total with most of the injured bowlers would be definitely one of the finest in Indian cricket history. Dennis Lillee recollected in his book "Menace" that he walked into the Indian dressing room and congratulated Kapil “Well bowled, mate. Can you please tell me the name and address of the Doctor you were seeing?”

Man of the match Medal for Vishy