Cricket: BYC podcast - Underarm 40th anniversary special

It's been 40 years to the day since New Zealand took the field at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to take on a fierce Australian side lead by Greg Chappell.

By the end of the night they had finished playing in one of the most infamous cricket matches in history, the underarm game.

Speaking to Dylan Cleaver, Jason Hoyte and Paul Ford of The Alternative Commentary Collective's BYC cricket podcast, New Zealand Cricket chairman and participant in the underarm game Martin Snedden opens up on that fateful day, his famous disallowed catch of Greg Chappell and the reaction post match.

As a fresh faced 21-year-old, it was Snedden's first tour. He was part of the controversy early after a spectacular diving catch of Greg Chappell was disallowed after the umpires claimed to be 'watching the batsmen for one short' rather than the ball.

"It was a shambles," Snedden told the BYC podcast. "The umpires are in charge of the game … this lousy excuse that they were watching the batsman tap down when running between the wickets doesn't really cut it."

To add to the disappointment, that summer Toyota had put a brand new vehicle up for the best catch of the summer. Snedden, a university student at the time, felt he would have won had the catch been allowed.

Listen along as Mike Lane, Jeremy Wells and Matt Heath relive THAT over:

It was one of many controversial decisions to be made that game, with in the last over Richard Hadlee was dismissed via a suspect lbw decision, having just hit Trevor Chappell down the ground for four the ball before.

"It was frantic at the end," stated Snedden, talking about the chaos that happened before the final ball.

"This underarm happened and Mark Burgess was standing there, he had been drinking a cup of tea or coffee and had an enamel cup in his hand and he stood up and threw, full force throw from the boundary, at the wall three meters away and this cup disintegrated into not just two or three bits but two or three thousand bits."

The drama continued as Geoff Howarth rushed on the field to argue the legality of the underarm but "They took about as much notice of it as they did of my catch," explained Snedden.

Despite the Kiwis giving the Australian team getting an earful as they entered the changing rooms opposite, New Zealand still decided to join the opposition for a traditional post-match beer.

"We realised pretty quickly we had made a mistake, in a sense that it wasn't that we were unwelcome. It was just that they were in a more 'stunned mullet' state then we were.

"Greg was in a dark place," said Snedden on the sight of Chappell, who had been subject to a grueling tour schedule that particular summer.

Even though there was a lot of frustration initially, 40 years on Snedden looks upon the event with some fondness.

"You know that was the moment cricket took off and in those days tennis and golf were still really popular, New Zealand Opens and Davis Cups and all that sort of stuff.

"Cricket just leapt ahead from there."

Hear the full interview in an Underarm 40th special on the latest BYC Podcast: