That Low Ball from ’81
2You may have been just a far-off glint in the milkman’s eye or you may have even been close to our Prime Minister’s age at the time and sat and snarled as he did, but wherever you were or whatever you were doing at the time, one thing is for certain- the Underarm bowling incident from 1981 is about as Kiwi as jandals, Jaffas and Snifters.
And the fact is, that even though we still deride and demonise him, albeit with plenty of justification, Greg Chappell should probably have been knighted by our national body for services to NZ cricket for ordering his curly-haired, brow-beaten little brother Trevor to roll that mully-grubber along the ground towards Brian McKechnie. Because after that, the general popularity of cricket increased here ten-fold. On top of that was the interest in having a snide villain to hate. GS Chappell fitted the bill perfectly. And it also helped that he looked like a bit of an aristocratic swine. Throw in a stupendous, but disallowed catch of Chappell himself which turned the result of the match in question and it gave us even more reasons to loathe.
It has been covered 14,947 times by our media over the past 38 years, but that’s down to it being probably the single most famous moment in our sporting history. It’s retro beige, canary yellow/slime green underarm bowling time on Monday evening 7.30pm on Prime TV. It should be quality television though, as Eric Young is the anchor.
As the documentary will no doubt touch on, we were pooped on more than once in that match on the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 1st February, 1981. And in some ways, the first bomb flushed down the Kiwis’ dunny was worse than the second, more smelly one.
With the Aussies batting first and Greg Chappell himself at the wicket on a quick 58, he hit a long hop from Lance Cairns into the wide open spaces of mid wicket. Only he hit the shot a little too aerially. Charging in from deep mid-wicket in the vicinity of the boundary was Martin Snedden (he of organising the 2011 Rugby World Cup). To put it in perspective, running in at full tilt and throwing yourself forward to make a catch when your Aunty Marie lobs one up in beach cricket is hard enough. Yet on the expanse of the MCG with a hard-hit cricket ball and 53,000 half-naked, towel-hatted, blathered, sunburnt yobs raised on a diet of 4 n’ 20 pies and VB Bitter cursing every Kiwi move, Sneds charged in like Usain Bolt, threw himself forward and scooped up the ball millimetres from the turf. Conniving Chappell was a goner, and just in time.
But, what’s this? The umpires maintained they hadn’t seen the catch made as they had BOTH been watching for ‘one short’ (when a batsman doesn’t put his bat fully over the crease line when turning for a run). A hopelessly feeble reason not to signal a dismissal for an amazing piece of fielding. Greg Chappell has stated on record he probably wasn’t mentally fit to be captain. It’s hard to have too much sympathy about that; he surely would still have known deep down right then that the decision he took with the underarm ball was morally wrong. However, the umpires with the Snedden ‘catch’- they were plainly incompetent and were almost unwilling to process that their great captain had holed out at a stage of the match where the Australians were dominating.
Actually, there was a third dud- Richard Hadlee literally shot out from the batting crease, such was the speed with which the umpire’s finger went up for an LBW decision on the second ball of the final, fateful over. The ball pitched outside the leg stump and would have missed the wickets at any rate. Hadlee had just hit a four from the first ball.
Those damn Aussies…
View the match highlights here:
-Paul Montague: talltree@xtra.co.nz
Haha..here’s everyone’s favourite tweeter from over the ditch having his say. And he’s on form: Getting uppity about claiming Jaffa lollies (lol) for the Australians! I’m still pissing myself laughing.
And, if he wasn’t actually such a butt crack himself, I’d concede that the line about ‘Snifters’ is actually quite witty, if a bit of an affront to that dearly-departed mint-choc candy.
And the second tweet- maybe he could learn to read properly. Coz it wasn’t even about the underarm delivery.
Anyway, thanks for caring, Baz. Always nice! Lot’s of love…
BASIL’S TWITS…I MEAN, TWEETS:
lol, talk about hyperbole! Only fat middle-aged softcock radiosport listeners give a stuff about what happened 38 years ago. Oh, and jaffas are an ocker invention! And wtf are snifters, is it something to do with butt sniffing?
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“53,000 half-naked, towel-hatted, blathered, sunburnt yobs raised on a diet of 4 n’ 20 pies and VB Bitter cursing every Kiwi move”
yet these ockers booed and jeered their own team from the field. How odd.
THE ABOVE LINE IS SURPRISINGLY CORRECT. GOOD GRIEF..
Reflections after the excellent documentary… (and nothing here to placate that idiot who loves trolling sportsfrk. Never).
1. Hadn’t thought about it much before, but Greg Chappell’s reaction after bowling out Howarth in the match was symptomatic of what happened later- the way he went down on his haunches and held his head in his hands was not the reaction of someone who had just taken the wicket of a top batsman. It looked as though he was truly at the end of his tether of being ‘chief cook and bottle washer’.
So even though I wouldn’t say I’m in the least sympathetic to what Chappell did, I think it’s a valid point to consider how stress leads people on to doing completely irrational things. However, balance that with what he has put his brother through in getting him to do his dirty work that day on the MCG, and it is even lower than the act of the underarm itself.
2. So I do feel extremely sympathetic towards the bowler of the fateful ball, Trevor Chappell. He looks and sounds a broken man. It tugged at the heart strings to hear that literally his ‘public’ epitaph will state he was the bowler of that ball. Pity he didn’t get Greg a decent one with that tomahawk (only joking…but you no doubt get the point).
3. How very forgiving the Kiwis were the following year on Eden Park. Crowd and all. And especially Geoff Howarth. Whatever you think of Howarth as a coach from the time of the 1994 debacle in South Africa, he was always top notch in everything he did as captain, including playing in the correct spirit no matter what transpired.