Watch the highlights of Australia vs India 9th Match Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket 1985 - Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket one-day international tournament of the 9th ODI match played between India and Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne in 03rd March 1985.
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| Kris Srikkanth celebrates his half-century © Channel 9 / Cricket Australia |
Bowlers attack before Openers from Ravi Shastri's half-century and Kris Srikkanth's brilliant unbeaten 93 leads to India easy eight-wicket victory over Australia in the ninth match of a Benson and Hedges World Championship of Cricket.
Australia scored 163 for all-out in 49.3 overs with top scorer by Wayne Phillips struck 60 off consuming 92-balls including 2-fours, Rodney Hogg 22 and Simon O'Donnell 17.
India best bowler by Roger Binny picked up 3-wickets for 27-runs in 7.3-overs, Kapil Dev, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan both took 2-wickets and one for Mahinder Amarnath - Ravi Shastri.
India chased 165-2 in 36.1 overs with top scorer by Kris Srikkanth cracked a unbeaten 93 off 115-balls including 12-fours and Ravi Shastri hit 51 off 94-balls.
Australia best bowler by Terry Alderman and Simon O'Donnell both took one-wickets.
Ravi Shastri named Player of the match for his match-winning all-round performance to scored a 51 off facing 94-balls including 5-fours after a taking 1-wicket for 34-runs in 10-overs including a maiden.
This match reported by Michael Carey (Third Party Reference from The Daily Telegraph)
INDIA, again achieving the high efficiency which enabled them to win the World Cup two years ago, defeated Australia by eight wickets in the self-styled World Championship at Melbourne, thus making possible a repeat of their 1983 Lord's final against the West Indies.
By winning Group A, India earned a semi-final place against New Zealand, runners-up in Group B, which takes place in Sydney on 5th March. The other semi-final, between West Indies and Pakistan, is in Melbourne on Wednesday, both games finishing under lights.
As for England, many of their players will be home-ward-bound by then after Pakistan had inflicted upon them their third successive defeat (see column four and five) in a competition which failed to stimulate them after their long and worthy efforts in India, which ought not to be forgotten this morning.
David Gower, the captain, plans a complete break from the game after which, he said last night, he plans to take a long look at his batting technique to try to pinpoint reasons for his lack of success. This may not be unconnected with the mental pressures of the job, as others have discovered before him.
Increasing demands
The increasing demands made on leading plavers are also ot some concern to him in a year when too much Test cricket is being played, while the toll that a constant diet of the one-day game can take was all to evident from Australia's embarrassingly poor performance.
It was their 16th one-day match since the recent Test series against the West Indies ended. Their captain Allan Border had already had to go through the extraordinary business of a public exhortation for "more enthusiasm " even though some members of his side are young in years and experience.
Their failure, totalling only 165 after at one point being reduced to 37 for five by India's accurate attack, was huge blow to the sponsors of this competition who now face a loss without Australia's presence. even though some 15,000 seats have been sold in advance for the final.
After the attendance of 82.494 for the opening match between England and Australia. crowds have been modest. None has reached the break-even figure of 24,000 required for matches at Melbourne and only 23,000 watched the latest display of India's rediscovered grasp of this form of cricket.
Their spinners, spinners, Shastri and Sivaramakrishnan, again played key roles, as indeed did Marks and Edmonds for England the previous evening: the difference was the greater accuracy of Binny, Kapil Dev and Amarnath, all of whom operated at a pace which allowed the ball to swing.
Australia's attack, all of whom are fast medium and above, had no such subtleties and an opening partnership of 124 between Srikkanth and Shatstri - the man of the match quickly removed all thoughts of India being dismissed for 160 or less, which Australia had to do to qualify.
Srikkanth remained unbeaten with 93, enjoying a day when he played and missed rather than found the edge. O'Donnell dropped him off a sitter at mid-on at 31, after which he put bat to ball as only he can, hooking and driving with few other errors.
After Shastri had been caught down the legside. Azharuddin experienced a rare failure when he was lbw second ball, so the crowd were denied even a glimpse of his tolents on a weekend when to more one-sided matches enabled the competition to maintain its 100 percent record of games which failed to capture the imganition.
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