Former Australian captain Greg Chappell has given a light-hearted recall of the infamous underarm delivery nearly 40 years on, saying their next match in New Zealand was "like the Beverly Hillbillies."
A guest on the Seven Network's The Front Bar show, Chappell was asked about the moment he ordered his younger brother Trevor to roll the final ball along the ground to New Zealand tailender Brian McKenchie, with six needed to tie the tri-series ODI finals cricket match in February 1981.
Greg Chappell told the show: "I was having a beer with Geoff Howarth, who was New Zealand captain at the time, at the end of the game a couple of days earlier. We were going to New Zealand soon after this and Geoff was bemoaning the fact that we had huge crowds in Australia but in New Zealand he said 'we don't get anyone to turn up.'
"[Howarth said] The All Blacks are the big thing and the cricket team run a very distant second, and we find it really hard to get people motivated to come and watch us. I said 'leave it with me'," Chappell said to laughter.
The next summer Australia toured New Zealand and the first ODI in Auckland drew a mammoth crowd with spectators crammed around the boundary rope.
Chappell likened some of the scenes to the old American TV sitcom, complete with livestock.
"Funnily enough the response from the New Zealand team and the public has been fantastic. We went to New Zealand soon afterwards and the first one-dayer we played was at Eden Park and they turned up from everywhere, a lot of them," Chappell told The Front Bar.
"It was like Beverly Hillbillies they all turned up, seriously, they've all come from the farm. As I walked out to bat there was a duck pushed out on the ground, there was a pig that was let loose, and next thing there was a lawn bowl came rolling out."
Chappell also related a meeting with then-Prime Minister Rob Muldoon who had previously labelled the underarm delivery an act of cowardice and that "it was appropriate the Australians were wearing yellow".
Australia's captain said he got a warm reception.
"It was interesting. He hosted us at a Prime Minister's function on the tour a few months later, and invited Geoff Howarth and myself to meet him in his office before we went to the function. And he said 'listen, don't worry too much about all that, you've got to do those things for the press'… We had a very good night at his expense that night."
Asked about the idea to bowl underarm, Chappell told The Front Bar he hadn't seen it done in a cricket match before but it had been discussed in the Australian camp.
At the time it was within the rules.
"Doug Walters practised it. He couldn't believe that Brian McKechnie just blocked the ball because Dougie used to flick the ball up with his front foot and then hit it out of the park."
Chappell said the relationship was fine with brother Trevor afterwards, despite the outpouring of anger from both sides of the Tasman.
"As he said, 'it was my older brother, what do I do? Just do as I'm told'. The funny thing is, I think if it had been anyone else I wouldn't have asked them to do it."
– This article originally appeared on stuff.co.nz and is reproduced with permission
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