India v Australia
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad: 3rd – 5th February 1984
With the series still on the line there was plenty to play for in the third Test, played at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad. Jill Kennare lost the toss but was quite at ease with this, given some unusual conditions.
“In a way I was glad the decision was not mine as the pitch had a patch of water buffalo urine on it and there was uncertainty as to how it would play. There was slight delay to the start of the test as the water buffalo had left a solid deposit in the covers and we waited whilst a groundsman in blue overalls removed the offensive deposit from the field.”
After the farcical start to proceedings, it seems fitting that the Test fell away to another predictable draw, given that Shantha Rangaswamy chose to bat and bat they did until lunch on day two, all out for 343. India’s bowling was as labored as their batting and the bowlers were spoken to by the umpire.
“The umpire spoke to Gargi (Banerjee) about time wasting and a couple of our players applauded this action. Gargi was not happy.”
Australia were 2/198 at the end of day two and given there was no real chance for a result, Kennare and her team got some batting practice on day three and amassed a new record for a Test match with 525 runs.
“I did not see any point in declaring as the pitch was too good for batting and I believed a draw was the only possible result. So we simply used it for practice. It was extremely frustrating the way the Indians killed off the match in their first innings, but we were learning not to expect anything different from them.”
The captain, who’d been short of runs on the tour and having dropped herself down a slot in the batting order, finished with 131. The innings included 17 fours and a six clubbed over the long off boundary. She scored 81 of 109 runs in the morning session and relished the opportunity to score some runs.
Australia bowled eight overs at India before the match ended in a draw.
India 343 (Agarwal 71, Pendharker 51, Martin 3-42, Fullston 3-75) and 0/50 drew with Australia 525 (Kennare 131, Verco 105, Price 104*, Kulkarni 3-133)