The Dean machine of Sept 1986

Australia’s Dean Jones on his 1986 tour of India. PIC/MID-DAY ARCHIVES

This week marks 40 years since the start of the 1986 Tied Test. For cricket fans of that era - not sure how many of them still get the same kick out of the modern game - it could hardly have been better than September 1986. That particular month ushered in a bumper international home season involving Australia, Sri Lanka and, later, Pakistan, in both formats of the game. Australia were clearly the underdogs. Their last series win had come in January 1984, when Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh were playing their final season.

After those departures, Australia lost both home and away to the WI, besides succumbing to England and NZ. But, true to their reputation, they backed themselves in 1986. Cricket manager - later known as coach - Bob Simpson was there to work with captain Allan Border.

"Though the names of some of the players may not register immediately, I hope by the end of the tour the Indian fans will know them well," Border said. One Australian who lived up to what his captain hoped for was Dean Jones. The Victorian began the series in Chennai with a double century that could have killed him, scored in brutally oppressive conditions.

Here was a man about to play only his third Test, having not figured in one for two-and-a-half years. Border offered him the No. 3 slot, and Jones accepted the pivotal position. He thought about the great players who had occupied it before him - Don Bradman, Ian Chappell, and Greg Chappell. The Test began on September 18. When Australia chose to bat, their No. 3 was not only padded up while David Boon and Geoff Marsh walked out; he also had his gloves on.

"I was nervous as hell. I had to change my gloves because they were wet already," Jones told me in 2004. The nervousness vanished when he faced his first ball. Yet Jones admitted that he didn't believe he was good enough for Test cricket against quality spin bowlers such as Ravi Shastri, Maninder Singh and Shivlal Yadav. Jones began getting dehydrated on the second day when he reached 125. By the time he got to 176, he wanted to return to the dressing room. But Border had a way of playing on Jones's ego. He told him that if he went off, a tough Queenslander, Greg Ritchie, would come in to take his place.

Jones's response was emphatic. First, he told his skipper he was going nowhere. Second, he told him he couldn't speak to him in that fashion. And third, he threatened Border with an uncomfortable encounter with his bat handle. Jones may have been livid with his captain at the time, but by 2004, when I asked him to recall that innings, he hailed Border. "That was his way of telling every player that these are the standards I expect and sometimes you have to go through a brick wall for your country." Jones was eventually dismissed for 210.

Border only realised how seriously ill Jones was when he had to be admitted to hospital. Simpson, in an ABC-produced documentary on the Tied Test, recalled how Jones had to be helped into his clothes and gear at the end of each interval, just so he could return to the battle.

Journalist Mike Coward, who had reported on heroic deeds across all sports, wrote in Cricket Beyond the Bazaar that Jones's "dressers" forgot to equip him with his abdominal and thigh guard when he was sent to the "front line" for the final phase of his first-innings epic. Coward wrote: "Not since I stood close to those who trailed American Frank Shorter into the Munich stadium at the end of the marathon at the 20th Olympiad [1972] had I seen a sportsman so distressed. His pupils were dilated, his lips swollen, his face red and his whole body weak and racked with pain."

If Greg Matthews was the bowling hero of the Tied Test with 10 wickets, Jones was undoubtedly its batting star. In my 2004 conversation with Jones, he also spoke with immense pride about his unbeaten 73 in the third and final Test at Mumbai, where he put on 146 with Border. "We got through to lunch. I went bang-bang and got to 60 before the new ball was due and Allan said to me, ‘Now you are a tough Test player. What you've done today has impressed me more than the 200 in Madras.' Gee, I felt 10 feet tall on the flight back home that night. The Chennai Test was my Mount Everest. If you want to become a good Test player, you have to climb your Mount Everest."

It would be a grave injustice to the deceased cricketer if Dean Jones were remembered solely for his Chennai innings. He was flamboyant in any suit, prolific with his County or Kookaburra bat, run-hungry, outrageous, and yet radiated a warmth and congeniality that endeared him to those around him. There was far more to Dean Jones than the 210 in Chennai. That, perhaps, is a story for another day.

mid-day's Editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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