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Trevor Chappell and Rod Marsh were also to blame for the underarm incident

Roar Guru
1st February, 2016
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Trevor Chappell's underarm ball in 1981 caused fractious relations between Australia and New Zealand. (AP Photo)
Roar Guru
1st February, 2016
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Today, February 1, 2016, marks the 35th anniversary of the infamous underarm delivery. The player who copped the most criticism from it, somewhat justifiably, was Greg Chappell. However how have Trevor Chappell and Rod Marsh not taken more of the blame?

Trevor Chappell was playing for Australia. He knew what he was doing wasn’t in the spirit of the game. He could have told his brother – the captain who told him to bowl underarm – to go and get lost, but didn’t.

He let his brother, who was out of order, down.

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Rod Marsh came out of it with little or no criticism at all. But he was right there, shaking his head and doing nothing!

Marsh could have stepped in and put an end to it before it got going. He could have said, “Bad idea mate, we aren’t doing that”, but he stood there shaking his head. How was ‘no mate’ going to help the situation?

Marsh did nothing to help the situation, and sometimes doing nothing is as bad as being part of it. In this case, it was.

However, Marsh avoided criticism as the media went for the skipper.

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Greg Chappell, of course, is not blameless. He was foolish and no matter how great a career he had, that incident will always be mentioned.

Like bodyline is forever a black mark for English cricket, this is forever a black mark for Australian cricket. However Greg Chappell shouldn’t be the only one to shoulder the blame. Trevor Chappell and Rodney Marsh could have put an end to the ridiculous idea before it got going.

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