TNCA felicitates players who participated in 1986 tied Test match

The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) President N Srinivasan felicitated four cricketers who featured in the only second Tied Test in the history of the game. Former Australia captain Allan Border, Dean Jones, former India captains Ravi Shastri and Krishnamachari Srikkanth were felicitated during the innings break in the final of the TN Premier League 2016 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium to mark the 30th anniversary of the historic Test match.

The famous game was played at Chennai from September 18 to 22, 1986. Border captain Australia in that game and scored a century in the first innings. Jones’ double-hundred in that match is also remembered as one of the famous knocks. Shastri was at the non-strikers’ end when the last Indian wicket fell during their run-chase.

Here is what they said at the Felicitation:

K Srikkanth: On behalf of all the cricketers of the Tied Test, I would like to thank the President Mr. N Srinivasan and all the members of TNCA and everyone assembled here for calling us over today. Mr Allan Border, one of the all-time greats of the game, is standing here. Dean Jones kept vomiting and vomiting on that day and still managed to score a double century. Quietly our man Allan sweeps and plays other shots to score a hundred. What a game it was! It was great to be a part of history and just imagine a Test ending on a Tie.

Allan Border: I must admit I didn’t think India could chase down 348 runs in one day. So it was quite an easy decision to make when I woke up on Day Five. I thought we were pretty safe and it was just a matter of whether we can pick ten wickets. Sunil Gavaskar had other ideas and he just came and started smashing the ball over all the place. (He scored) a very good 90 and a quick partnership with Jimmy (Mohinder) Amarnath got them rolling. All of a sudden the game started taking shape. Fantastic game to be part of.

Dean Jones: Thank you very much Mr. Srinivasan for your invitation and your gifts. The chase was set up beautifully by Kris Srikkanth and with some great strokeplay by Gavaskar. But we still knew we could get them all out and all of a sudden Ravi Shastri started hitting Greg Matthews for sixes and the game was almost done. He took the single to take the scores level, but cricketing Gods thought no team is going to lose here and the fact was we got a tie. It was a major game for both the countries and more importantly over last 30 years, we have become mates forever. That’s what the game is about.

Ravi Shastri: Thank you Srinivasan Sir for appreciating the efforts from both the teams 30 years ago. Yes, I was very angry because that was the quickest umpiring decision I have seen in my lifetime. Australia was the team that made the game by declaring. They could have easily batted another half an hour and killed the game. My lasting memory of the game was when play started there were 5000 people in the stadium and when it ended there were 50,000 people. That itself was one of the great advertisements for Test match cricket.

N Srinivasan: The first memory of the game are the two straight sixes hit by Srikkanth. I was sitting in the terrace pavilion and I thought he was trying to hit me because it was straight at me. The lasting impression was it was a great game with both teams having a chance to win. It was oscillating and finally like Deano (Dean Jones) said the cricketing Gods decided it should be a tie. Very nice to have reminisce that today. Kapil (Dev) couldn’t be here, but happy to have other important people involved in the game.