30th anniversary of 1986 Ind vs Aus tied Test: Chennai was my Mount Everest, says Dean Jones

Dean Jones, who became a better batsman after the India series in 1986, is seen celebrating a hundred against Pakistan at Adelaide in 1990. Pic/Getty Images

Dean Jones, who became a better batsman after the India series in 1986, is seen celebrating a hundred against Pakistan at Adelaide in 1990. Pic/Getty Images

Wonder what stung Dean Jones more - his 1986 captain Allan Border saying that he would get a tough Queenslander in if Jones wanted to return to the Chidambaram Stadium pavilion while he was battling serious health issues against India at Chennai 30 years to the date or Greg Matthews underplaying his 210 in the Australian media on Saturday.

In any case, Jones can be proud for playing one of the gutsiest innings in Test cricket history. This writer spoke to Jones a couple of days before the 2004 India vs Australia Test at Chennai where Jones was for television commentary.

Excerpts from an interview:

What are the images that conjure up in your mind when you think of Chennai?
The heat, humidity that I never experienced before. It (Chidambaram Stadium) was a concrete coliseum. I flew in here on Monday with a smile on my face because this city put the Australian team and me on the map.

Can you recall what was it like when you went in to bat at number three?
I always wore my gloves while waiting to bat. Geoff Marsh and David Boon got off to a slow start and I was nervous as hell. I had to change my gloves because they were wet already. It was my first Test in two and a half years.

What made you so nervous - the crowd, the challenge, the occasion or your position in the team?
A multitude of things, really. I did not think I was good enough at that level and against spinners like Ravi Shastri, Maninder Singh and Shivlal Yadav. I suppose you have to stick to the game plan when under pressure. You might not believe in it but that is where discipline comes in and it worked.

At what point in your innings you believed you could get a big score?
Probably when I was 60-odd not out at the end of the first day. I got some easy runs early the next day and reached my hundred pretty quickly. But after I reached 125, I was dehydrated. I felt pins and needles in my body and just started playing from memory.

Allan Border said to you that he would get a Queenslander in, if you don't want to continue...
Yes. I was so sick that Sunny Gavaskar and Kapil Dev were concerned about my health. At the end of the over, I would vomit and Sunny would say, 'get some lime soda.' I'd throw up again. Sunny was trying to work out things that could help me. Can you imagine teams doing that sort of thing now? At 176, I had vomited half a dozen times and I said, 'I don't want to be remembered for throwing up on a pitch.' I told Allan that I am ruining the game and wanted to go off. After all, people don't want to see this. He then called me a 'weak so and so and a weak Victorian.' He said, 'I want a tough Queenslander out here, referring to Greg Ritchie, who was the next batsman. I am very loyal to Victoria and I said, 'right, I am staying. You can't talk to me like that.' I don't know whether it was pride or stupidity that got me through but I was quite willing to go off then. The Chennai Test was my Mount Everest. If you want to become a good Test player, you have to climb your Mount Everest.

What did this reveal of Allan Border as a captain?
Whether he meant what he said or not, that was an example of telling every player in the squad that 'these are the standards I expect and sometimes you have to go through a brick wall for your country.' That's why I call the Tied Test as the renaissance of Australian cricket. We batted our backsides off on a huge turner in Mumbai later in the series. I was batting with Border. We got through to lunch. I went bang 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.

This interview first appeared in mid-day on October 12, 2004