The Underarm Ball That Got an International Cricket Rule Rewritten
It was legal. It was also Greg Chappell ordering his little brother to roll a cricket ball along the ground at a Test player.
On 1 February 1981, with one ball left in the third final of the World Series Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, New Zealand needed six runs to tie. The batsman, Brian McKechnie, was a New Zealand rugby international who had also played 14 ODIs. The bowler was Trevor Chappell. His brother Greg, the Australian captain, walked over and told him to bowl the last ball underarm — rolled along the ground.
McKechnie blocked it with his bat and threw the bat away in disgust. Australia won. The crowd at the MCG, all 52,000 of them, went quiet, then booed.
The delivery was legal. Australian Cricket Board rules at the time still permitted underarm bowling in limited-overs cricket, a holdover from cricket's 18th-century origins when underarm was the norm. New Zealand and the wider cricket world reacted as if it weren't. Robert Muldoon, the New Zealand prime minister, called it the most disgusting incident he could recall in cricket. Richie Benaud, calling the match for Channel Nine, said on air it was "one of the worst things I have ever seen done on a cricket field."
The International Cricket Council banned underarm deliveries in limited-overs internationals soon after, codifying as a rule what had always been an unwritten one. Greg Chappell later said he was tired and frustrated and would do almost anything else differently. Trevor, who has spent the rest of his life answering for one over, has said much the same.
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