5TH MATCH -- ZIMBABWE v INDIA

This match was played in extremely hot conditions. Ahmedabad, in the northwest of India, seemed very far removed physically and geographically from the rest of India; it is in an arid region and camels are often seen. They had not had significant rain in Ahmedabad for several years, and the cricket ground was the only green area in a virtual desert.

Ali Shah was particularly excited as his ancestors had come from this part of India, but he was to be rather disappointed. Eddo Brandes recalls that their first sight as they approached the city was of coloured camels: they were having a festival and sprayed paint apparently haphazardly on their camels and donkeys as part of the programme.

The hotel was the only one the Zimbabweans did not find outstanding in quality on their tour, and there was also a large crowd massed outside which kept up their noise, shouting and blowing whistles and hooters, for most of the night before the match. Robin Brown feels this was done to make things as difficult for the opposition as possible. Should any of them venture to look outside through the curtain windows, the noise multipled immediately, as the crowd all waved and shouted at them. Eddo Brandes notes that the security was poor, as people were able to get past the guards and knock on their doors during the night.

The crowd for this match was 'only' about 30 000, less than half of what it had been in Zimbabwe's previous match in Calcutta, but the Ahmedabad crowd had achieved some notoriety for its behaviour. During the Indian innings at one stage the match had to be stopped temporarily as Ali Shah and Grant Paterson, fielding on the boundary, were continually being hit by objects such as bottles, stones and ball-bearings from the crowd. The Zimbabweans found this behaviour unsettling and did not enjoy their stay in Ahmedabad at all. They were at least grateful for a barbed-wire security fence that ensured the crowd were unable to invade the field. Dave Houghton stresses, though, that the throwing of objects by the crowd was not done with malice but rather to attract the attention of the fielders, to get them to turn and wave or talk to them or sign autographs.

Peter Rawson returned for this match, although far from fully fit; he could not open the bowling and came on as third change off a short run. In the circumstances he was to bowl remarkably well, and took two of the three wickets to fall, including Gavaskar again for the third time in their three meetings. Eddo Brandes also bowled well, although it was not reflected in his figures. Kevin Curran was dropped for this match. He had not been bowling well or playing as a good team man, so it was decided to prefer a half-fit Rawson.

Zimbabwe were put in to bat, and Kevin Arnott was the only senior batsman to settle. Ali Shah was given run out in the second over, which some Zimbabweans thought an astonishing decision from umpire Dickie Bird, believing him to be past the stumps when the wicket was put down. Shah himself is less certain that it was so clear-cut, but he did believe he had made his ground, as a replay later seemed to indicate. He was facing, and was hit on the pad, the ball running backward of square leg. Sidhu fielded the ball and hit the stumps at the bowler's end with a brilliant direct hit. The feeling of some was that it took Bird by surprise and he guessed his decision.

Three wickets were down for 40, and they were always fighting back from that. Arnott batted well but was unable to score quickly enough, though, feeling the need to consolidate after those early losses, and Waller, Butchart and Rawson had to hit out with a touch of desperation to improve the run rate.

Even so, the total did not reach 200, and this was likely to be inadequate. Prabhakar was economical but not the danger he had been in the previous game; he could not swing the ball but bowled very tightly, while the Zimbabweans took no chances and played him with great caution. The spinners Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri gave them more trouble and again made scoring difficult.

The Indians themselves were not treated well by the Ahmedabad crowd. Dilip Vengsarkar was pelted by objects from the crowd when in the field and Sunil Gavaskar, then rated by many as the greatest batsman in the world, was put under a lot of pressure by the crowd for his failure to score as quickly as they would have liked. He was battling to time the ball although nevertheless picking off the runs fairly steadily, but they wanted to see a big-hitting innings and were not satisfied. Pycroft found it ironic that the world's best batsman, playing an innings in an entirely appropriate way, should be booed off the ground by his home crowd for doing so. In the end Gavaskar fell once again to Rawson, still not properly fit and coming on as second change. On his dismissal the crowd booed him and threw all manner of objects in his direction as he left the field.

Navjot Sidhu at the other end to Gavaskar made up for it. He had not batted in the first encounter between the teams, but now waltzed down the pitch to hit his first ball from Traicos over his head into H Stand, a gigantic hit by any standards. He had recently been promoted to the Indian team and even more recently up the order, and he often made a big impact in one-day cricket, especially against Zimbabwe.

There was a practical reason why it was important for the Indians to score quickly, because teams tied on points in the group tables (as India were to do with Australia) were placed by virtue of their overall run rate. Kapil Dev, moved up to number five to increase the run rate, did just that, with an unbeaten 41 off 25 balls. Mohammad Azharuddin and Ravi Shastri were not even required to bat. But India had not batted quite quickly enough to overtake Australia on scoring rate, although a convincing victory in their final match enabled them to do so, and so gain a semi-final match at home.

Later on came the incidents on the boundary. Ali Shah tells of how he received a bit of hostility from some in the crowd, accusing him as an Indian of being a sell-out in playing against India. As many Zimbabwean Asians come from this part of India, including his own family, he expected to find a lot of support, but it turned out to be the reverse. He found himself frequently bombarded by fruit while fielding on the boundary, and when the fruit ran out this changed to pebbles and chips of cement pulled from the concrete terraces. To avoid the missiles he moved in a few metres from the boundary, but then one of the batsmen hit a stroke near him which he was unable to cut off in his new position. A couple of warnings to the crowd by the match authorities had no effect.

Then a steel ball bearing whizzed past his ear and he decided enough was enough. He picked it up and ran over to umpire Bird, who could not hear him shouting to him because of the noise of the crowd. Bird stopped Traicos from bowling and said that the game would not recommence until some security was arranged in that area of the ground. Eddo Brandes remembers Shah saying to Traicos, "If you want to carry on playing, you can do it without me!" -- an outburst completely out of character for this mild-mannered, friendly man. It took five or ten minutes before a squad of security guards arrived and Shah was able to return to his position.

Robin Brown too had been fielding near the boundary, and found objects such as pebbles, chicken bones, eggs and fireworks flying past him, so he kept ten to fifteen metres inside the boundary to avoid being hit. Malcolm Jarvis relates how it was important to move to his position with his back to the crowd all the time, as every time he turned to face the crowd they virtually went wild, shouting, waving and throwing objects.

The match was finished in a blaze of glory by Kapil Dev, who promoted himself ahead of Mohammad Azharuddin to improve his team's overall scoring rate. He was dropped at long-off by Malcolm Jarvis off the bowling of Shah, but went on to hit an unbeaten 41 off only 25 balls.

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