Former Test umpire Madhav Gothoskar and his colleague Swaroop Kishen once threatened the Zaheer Abbas-led Pakistan team with forfeiting a dead as a dodo Test match if it did not take the field and complete the mandatory overs in the last hour of play.
The incident, chronicled by the Mumbai-based Gothoskar in his autobiography The Burning Finger, occurred during the 1983-84 rain-hit Bangalore Test against the hosts, led by Sunil Gavaskar, who went on to complete his 28th ton there.
"Zaheer Abbas, the skipper, was in a hell of a bother in this Test. He argued about when the match should start after the showers. We had already fixed the time at 11 am, but Zaheer told my mate Swaroop Kishen that his team would refuse to come on the field as the outfield was very slippery. Fortunately for him, he did not carry out the threat," Gothoskar wrote in his book, describing the Test.
"On the last day of the Test, Zaheer adamantly refused to bring back his players to the field because, according to him, the match was over. On the morning of the last day, Zaheer asked me for clarification about mandatory overs. I told him that in India all the mandatory overs had to be bowled, whatever the state of the game.
"But after 14 mandatory overs he, along with his team, walked off the field without the umpires declaring the close of play. We maintained that if his team did not complete six more overs, India would be declared winners. The ruse worked," wrote Gothoskar.
Gothoskar continues, "The Pakistan team returned to the field. Gavaskar duly completed his 28th Test hundred, but it was an inconsequential century.
"After the Pakistanis left the field, Gavaskar refused to leave the ground and dissuaded his partner [Anshuman] Gaekwad from leaving the field, despite the repeated entreaties of his skipper Kapil Dev. It left a poor taste in the mouth, though the unsophisticated Indian crowd was overjoyed because Gavaskar was now only one short of [Don] Bradman's record."
Zaheer's contention was, as chronicled by Gothoskar, that "according to the tour conditions, the minimum number of overs to be bowled per day was 77. By bowling 14 mandatory overs, Pakistan had bowled 91 overs. As there was no question of any result, his team's walking off the field was fully justified.
"Where Zaheer went wrong was that the rule of 77 overs per day applied to only the first four days of a Test match. In tour conditions, it was clearly stated that on the last day 20 mandatory overs shall be bowled in the last hour. Zaheer's charge that we bent the rules to allow Gavaskar his hundred does not hold good.
"This was yet another example of ignorance of the Laws and the umpires becoming the scapegoat if anything went wrong on the field."
Zaheer, significantly, is the manager of the Pakistan squad currently touring England, which became the first team to forfeit a Test match, at The Oval, after being docked five penalty runs by umpire Darrell Hair for alleged tampering with the ball.
