Maninder’s duck led to the second Tied Test in cricketing history: The first Test of the three-match series against Australia in the 1986-87 series, played at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai (then Madras), between 18th and 22nd September, 1986 is remembered for quite a few reasons.
Sunil Gavaskar, the iconic opener, became the first player to be featured in 100 consecutive matches.
This match also saw Dean Jones notch up the highest individual score in a Test in India by an Australian. In an innings that lasted 502 minutes, Jones scored 210 runs aided by 27 fours and 2 sixes, unless he was ‘done in by Shivlal Yadav.
In the process, Jones added 158 runs for the second wicket with David Boon (122), 76 runs for the third wicket with Ray Bright (30) and 178 runs for the fourth wicket with the skipper, Alan Border (106).
Unfortunately Jones had to be treated in hospital for exhaustion after his marathon innings.
These significant contributions enabled Australia to declare their first innings at 574 runs for the loss of 7 wickets.
For India, Shivlal Yadav had returned with the analysis of 49.5-9-142-4.
India replied with a score of 397 runs with the skipper, Kapil Dev, scoring a fine century (119 runs) and ably supported by good contributions from Srikkanth (53), Azharuddin (50), Shastri (62). They faced a deficit of 177 runs.
Greg Mathews had a wonderful bowling figure of 28.2-3-103-5.
Adding to the first innings lead, Australia declared their second innings at 170 runs for the loss of 5 wickets and put up a target of 348 runs.
India got going very well in the second knock. They moved to 204 runs for the loss of 3 wickets with Gavaskar scoring a wonderful 90 runs and Mohinder Amanath contributing 51 runs.
Azharuddin (42) and Chandrakant Pandit (39) added another 47 runs for the fourth wicket while the seventh-wicket partnership between Ravi Shastri (48) and Chetan Sharma (23) realised a good 40 runs.
After the fall of the 9th wicket in the form of Shivlal Yadav (8), Maninder Singh walked in to join Ravi Shastri, with the score reading 344 runs, with eight balls remaining in the match. India needed just 4 runs to win a great and well fought encounter.
Maninder Singh defended the last two balls of the penultimate over, bringing in Shastri to strike in the last over from Greg Mathwes, who, after having a 5-wicket haul in the first innings, had already bagged 4 wickets in the second.
Shastri, after blocking the first ball, attempted to score the winning runs off the second. However, he had played it ‘a shade’ too early, with the ball dropping in front of the deep square, resulting in a couple of runs.
The third ball was quietly played by Shastri towards the mid-wicket for a single bring the scores at level and denying a victory to the Aussies.
After the cross over, Maninder had to face three balls and just had to take a single to win the game for India.
However, with great difficulty he defended the fourth ball. Trying to do the same with the fifth and pen-ultimate delivery, Maninder missed the line and was wrapped on the pads only to be given out, ‘leg before wicket’.
The scored being equal at that point of time, the Test ended in a TIE.
Greg Mathews ended the match with the analysis of 68.1-10-279-10.
This was the only second time since 1877 that a Test match had ended in a tie. The first instance happened in the First Test played between Australia and West Indies at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, in December 1960.
This is a sort of record for Australia being involved in both the TIED Tests.