Leg before, scores level

India needed 348 to win on the last day at Madras in September 1986. They were all out for 347. The last man was given leg before on the fifth ball of the last over with the scores level, and the card says Match tied, which only one Test card had said before.

How a chase of 348 was set

Australia had won the toss and batted into the third morning. Dean Jones made 210 from 330 balls in 503 minutes, with 27 fours and two sixes, and was treated in hospital for exhaustion afterwards, which the card notes. David Boon made 122 and Allan Border 106, and Australia declared at 574 for seven.

India replied with 397, Kapil Dev making 119 from 138 balls and Greg Matthews taking five for 103. Australia batted again and closed the fourth day on 170 for five. Border declared overnight, at that score, and set 348 in a day.

The chase

Sunil Gavaskar made 90, in his hundredth consecutive Test. Kris Srikkanth made 39, Mohinder Amarnath 51, Mohammad Azharuddin 42, Chandrakant Pandit 39. Kapil Dev was caught for 1 at 253. Ravi Shastri came in at 253 for five and was still there at the end, 48 not out from 40 balls with two sixes.

The wickets in the last hour fell at 331, 334, 344 and 347. Chetan Sharma for 23, Kiran More first ball, Shivlal Yadav bowled for 8 by Ray Bright with four still needed. Then Matthews to Shastri, with Maninder Singh at the other end and one wicket standing.

Full scorecard: India v Australia, 1st Test, Madras, 18–22 September 1986 →

The over

The last pair added three, all of them Shastri’s, and the last of the three was a single that levelled the scores and put Maninder on strike. On the fifth ball of the over Maninder was hit on the pad, Matthews appealed, and the umpire at the bowler’s end, V. Vikramraju, gave him out. The card records it as lbw b Matthews 0, from four balls, and the innings as 347 all out in 86.5 overs.

Matthews finished with five for 146 from 39.5 overs, and ten in the match. Bright took five for 94. Between them the two spinners bowled 64.5 of the 86.5 overs and took all ten wickets.

Two ties, two mechanisms

At Brisbane in 1960 the tie was produced by two run-outs, both from throws, with the bowler taking neither wicket. At Madras it was produced by an umpire’s decision on an appeal. One was a matter of inches and a throw; the other was a matter of judgement, made by one man, in a second.

That is the difference the card cannot show. A run-out is a fact the fielders made. An lbw is an opinion the umpire held, and the opinion at Madras has been argued about since the afternoon it was given. The result does not change. The category of the last ball does.

What else is on the card

Two players of the match, Kapil Dev and Jones, because a tie has two of everything. A note that Kiran More left the field with food poisoning after fifty minutes on the first morning and Pandit kept wicket in his place. A note that Jones’s 210 was the highest score by an Australian in a Test in India. And a series line that reads level, nought all, after a match in which 1,488 runs were scored.

What the card holds

A declaration at an overnight score. A target of 348 and a total of 347. Four wickets for 16 runs at the end, the last of them to a decision rather than a delivery. And a result the record has one word for, tied, which it had needed once before in a hundred and nine years and has needed exactly twice.

••••••

No. 6 in Not Out, a series of 8.

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