The current series between New Zealand and England reminds me of a spectacular game between them at Adelaide Oval, in January 1983. I was following the match on ABC, Radio. England started well, with an unusual maverick move of sending Botham as the opener. It surprised many as such a thing was hitherto unheard of in the nascent days of One day cricket. Botham duly obliged scoring a swashbuckling 65 with 4 sixes, not a common thing those days. David Gower followed with a stylish 109 (he was in a great form in that series) and England made a formidable total of 296, which was quite huge at that time.
New Zealand started shaky, soon lost 2 wickets with hardly any substantial score on board. At that point England did the cardinal mistake in Sports, never ever take your opponent for granted. As they say in America, "it ain't over until it's over". They got lazy and sloppy in the outfield. Needless to say, Richard Hadlee (79), Coney (50) and Crowe (49) comfortably took the Kiwis home as the English bowlers and fielders faltered on a hot afternoon in Adelaide when the temperature touched 40 degrees (104 F). Those days Day and Night games were limited only to MCG and SCG. (Later in 1983 the first day and night match was played in at Nehru Stadium, Delhi marred by power outages. India defeated their traditional rivals Pakistan by a late burst of hitting by Kirti Azad).
New Zealand started shaky, soon lost 2 wickets with hardly any substantial score on board. At that point England did the cardinal mistake in Sports, never ever take your opponent for granted. As they say in America, "it ain't over until it's over". They got lazy and sloppy in the outfield. Needless to say, Richard Hadlee (79), Coney (50) and Crowe (49) comfortably took the Kiwis home as the English bowlers and fielders faltered on a hot afternoon in Adelaide when the temperature touched 40 degrees (104 F). Those days Day and Night games were limited only to MCG and SCG. (Later in 1983 the first day and night match was played in at Nehru Stadium, Delhi marred by power outages. India defeated their traditional rivals Pakistan by a late burst of hitting by Kirti Azad).
Later in 1987, I saw the highlights of this match on a popular Sunday morning show on TV called Gavaskar's present ( there was only one channel available called Doordarshan. hence the term was TRP alien to all). The English could not believe that they could not defend their indefensible total. Their body languages said it all. This was probably one of the first instances of greatest chases in One Day Cricket, not by the mighty Windies. I did not see any footage from this match on youtube. Will appreciate, if some one ever locates it. it will be interesting to flip through the pages of history.
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