The Aussies started to indulge in mind games. They started sledging, challenging, harassing and clashing with the opposition team to unsettle the opposition player's mental balance.
Each umpiring blunder was taken as something done intentionally by the common men, though it was never said so and reports only suggested the errors committed.
Following are some of the incidents that made contest between these two countries more intresting:
Melbourne 1981: Sunil Gavaskar. Ever the gentleman, the man always playing with the spirit of the game, master at keeping emotions in check, lost it that day in Melbourne as after given LBW on 70 off Lillee, Gavaskar insisted he got an inside edge.
With Lillee and the Aussies sneering and umpire in no mood to revert his decision, Gavaskar took his partner Chetan Chauhan with him and started walking off.
Thankfully Team Manager Durrani stepped in, calmed Gavaskar down and sent Chauhan back to the crease.
Chennai 1986-87: Batting under unbearable humid Chennai weather which even the Indian batsmen found hard to cope, a dehydrating Dean Jones played according to Bob Simpson, ‘The greatest inning ever played for Australia' and the match fittingly ended in a tie with Greg Matthews trapping Maninder Singh LBW. Maninder till date mentions that he was not out.
