New spin on underarm bowl:
It was a day of infamy in the history of trans-Tasman cricket, but it had a positive side, says Ian Smith, who played in that fateful underarm ball match. Peter Eley reports
Sports commentator Ian Smith talks about the ball that changed cricket.
It was one of the most bizarre moments in cricket’s history, an event that soured trans-Tasman relations. Yet it was a cloud with a silver lining for New Zealand.
On February 1,1981 Geoff Howarth’s team faced Australia in the third match of the Benson & Hedges World Series final, tied one all in the five-match rubber.
New Zealand needed a six off the last ball to draw what had already been a controversial game.
To the boos of a world record crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australian captain Greg Chappell told his younger brother Trevor to bowl it underarm, meaning batsman Brian McKechnie couldn’t score the required runs.
Australian cricket legend Richie Benaud, then a Channel 9 commentator, was one of the first into the fray, calling Greg Chappell’s decision “disgraceful” and “one of the worst things I have ever seen done on a cricket on a cricket field”.
New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon took it up a notch: “It was an act of true cowardice and I consider it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow.”
The fire hasn’t gone completely out 38 years on, and the flames are fanned in Prime’s documentary Underarm – The Ball That Changed Cricket.
Radio Live breakfast host and Sky Sports commentator Ian Smith
was on the pitch that day, a 22-year-old wicketkeeper playing just his third one-day international.
He appears in the documentary along with Greg Chappell, Trevor Chappell, Howarth, McKechnie, Bruce Edgar, whose century had set up a possible New Zealand victory, and other players from that day.
Initially, he says, he didn’t realise the implications. “I was just a kid on his first tour, but you grew up very quickly in terms of the enormity of the situation. From being johnny on the spot, it became bigger than Texas. It just grew and grew and grew.”
Looking back, Smith says that ironically, the incident turned out to be positive for New Zealand. “It did change cricket in the fact that it sparked interest and that was reflected when we got home. The crowds were enormous.”
That level of support set the team up for one of its most successful decades, he says.
The MCG game was controversial for more than the underarm ball. More important in terms of the result was a brilliant catch by Martin Snedden that should have seen Greg
“It was an act of true cowardice and I consider it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow.”
– then Prime Minister Rob Muldoon
Chappell dismissed for 58. Defiantly, he stood his ground and the Australian umpires gave him not out, saying they had been looking elsewhere. He went on to make 90.
“That changed the game enormously. Instead of chasing 235, we would have been looking at 200 or so,” says Smith.
His theory about the underarm ball is that Greg Chappell got his maths wrong. “For a number 10 or 11 batsman to come out with one shot to hit over the fence, 100-1 I reckon. And we couldn’t win, anyway.”
The day after the game, Chappell told the Melbourne Age: “It was within the rules of the game. In my opinion it was fair play. We had played our guts out and I wasn’t going to see us beaten on the last ball.”
In Underarm – The Ball That Changed Cricket, Chappell looks into the camera and defends his decision by saying he was under stress at the time. “I’d had a gutsful of being captain, I was desperate for rest,” but there’s no apology.
Smith says he feels no antagonism towards Chappell, who he says was one of the few international cricketers to fly here for Martin Crowe’s funeral in 2016. “I see a guy who was hell bent on winning, on excellence, but it’s just one thing, one horrible moment that he’s remembered for. “I’ve never said you bloody well deserved that. It just shows the will of the guy that he carried on after that, and played world class cricket. About 75 per cent of people would have given it away. ” The inevitable comparison is with the other disgraced Australian captain Steve Smith, handed a lengthy ban along with David Warner and Cameron Bancroft following a ball tampering incident. “The sandpaper incident runs deeper,” says Ian Smith. “The underarm thing did change the rules and it did have an effect on the morals of the game for a long time, but this has hit the core of cricket a lot harder and the penalties have reflected that. “I think Steve Smith will feel extremely responsible that Australia are a very beatable side at the moment and playing pretty average cricket. “He genuinely feels he owes Australia some great performances. If he comes out and gets 100 in a big game, as cricket fans we’ll stand up and clap him.”
“I see a guy who was hell bent on winning, on excellence, but it’s just one thing, one horrible moment that he’s remembered for.” – Ian Smith