Underarm ball ! : and Trevor Chappell helps Aussies beat Kiwis by six runs

By A.C De Silva

What a match... Win at all cost seemed to be the order of the day and Australia had to do an "underhand" deal to be in the finals of Benson and Hedges World series Cup to make sure that New Zealand could not "tie" the match with a six off the last ball. Rather the Aussie Greg Chappell chose not to give New Zealand the least chance to stay in the contest till the final clash and so ordered his brother Trevor deliver one ball underarm.

This resulted in a violent cricket storm and yet Australia outplayed the Kiwis in the day-night match in Sydney, with an efficient all-round performance. The New Zealanders battled hard to stretch Australia on both days but they did not possess enough batting strength in their line-up to make their dream of winning the prestige event to be a reality.

Except for that controversial ball, the Melbourne match was the best of the final series.

There was any amount of good cricket in it and it came from both sides. Greg Chappell his ideas about putting the opposition in and elected to bat. He was responsible for Australia running up a huge 50-overs score of 235.

With Graeme Wood, Greg Chappell added 145 runs for the second wicket and Greg went on to top score with 90.

A record crowd for a limited overs match - almost 53,000 absorbed every minute of the partnership in which both Greg and Wood went at even pace to make the Kiwi attack look innocuous.

MCG wicket fine

The wicket was fine and it was easily the best at the MCG and the only incident that clouded the stand was a superb catch taken by Martin Snedden at deep mid-wicket to dismiss Greg Chappell. The umpires ruled him not out.

The catch was taken at a good distance from the middle, but if the umpires had kept track of the ball instead of looking at whether the batsmen were touching the creases properly in running between the wickets, their view that there was a doubt could have been justified. They accepted that they did not watch the flight of the ball and that led to another poor decision handed down.

Greg Chappell made 32 more to get to 90 while Wood made 72. Martin Kent played a key innings of 33 to set up Australia with a good 200-plus total. Snedden was rewarded for his earlier effort as a fielder when Greg Chappell pulled him to the same spot and Bruce Edgar took a similar superb tumbling catch. On such a wicket at least New Zealand could expect to get to 236 and what is possibly New Zealand's best opening combination for years made such a chase a very live possibility.

Edgar and Wright batted fluently and Australia's slow medium bowlers were quite unable to do anything to stop them. Beard and the Chappells had runs taken off them freely and despite the fall of Wright, Edgar took the fight to the opposite camp by stroking freely all-round the wicket.

The left-hander is a steady player who needs the ball to be coming at him to force but this pitch was right-up-his alley.

He was severe on anything short and though he was a shade slow while Howarth and Burgess were in with him, he pulled out of that period well to catch up on the striking rate with some well played pulls off short balls.

Counting of overs took place

He was approaching his century and New Zealand its target and Greg Chappell was a worried man in the final stages. Greg, Hughes and Lillee counted the overs on their fingers and still Australia made the mistake of bringing on Lillee for his second spell too early and hence Trevor Chappell was given the unenviable task of bowling the last over. Cairns, Howarth and Burgess fell in the excitement as also John Parker who played with fine touches of his experience at a very vital stage of the innings.

Fifteen runs were needed for a win in the last over and Hadlee made 11 with a pull off the first delivery. He tried that stroke again and fell leg before. Smith kept the issue open with a couple of braces and he too lost his cricket going for a wild pull off the fifth ball.

That left the non-batsman Brian McKenzie with the task of hitting a six across the 85-yards boundary off the final delivery of the match. Seen purely as a cricketing chance, it was a very low one as no six had been hit in the previous 464 runs that day. Yet Greg Chappell chose to take shelter in the rules that permitted an underarm delivery.

That gave Australia a 2-1 lead.

Sydney

Australia: 235 for 4 wkts in 50 overs (G. Wood 72, G. Chappell 90, M. Kent 33 beat New Zealand: 229 for 8 wkts in 50 overs (J. Wright 42, B-Edgar 102 not out, G. Chappell 3 for 43).