November 3, 1978 – When India conceded an ODI to Pakistan

A spiced up contest between Pakistan and India with the ODI series at stake came to a pale end in a controversial way when India decided to walk off in protest of the umpiring decisions conceding the game to the home team. The 3rd and final ODI game of the series was played on November 3rd, 1978 at the Sahiwal’s Zafar Ali Stadium, which never hosted an International game after this.

The series was played in the 40 overs-a-side format and India started off on a winning note defending 170 in the first ODI at Quetta, which they won the game by four runs. Indians were bowled out for just 79 runs in the 2nd ODI at Sialkot as Pakistan chased down the total easily to level the series. The decider was played after the teams featured in two of the 3-match Test series.

Pakistan elected to bat first after winning the toss and posted a stiff total of 205/7 on the board. Asif Iqbal scored a 72-ball 62 while the remaining batsmen also made contributions to the total. In their chase to win the series, Anshuman Gaekwad anchored the innings as he put on 44 for the opening wicket with Chetan Chauhan (23) and 119 with Surinder Amarnath (62).

Negative strategy

India reached 183/2 by the end of the 37th over with another 23 runs needed for a win from the last 18 balls. Sarfraz Nawaz ran into Gaekwad for the 38th over firing in four consecutive bouncers with all of them out of the reach of the tall Indian opener. The on-field umpires Javed Akhtar and Khizer Hayat didn’t call any of the balls wide as the required equation for India came down to 23 off 14 balls.

India’s then captain Bishen Singh Bedi in protest to Pakistan’s tactics and umpiring decisions called back the Indian batsmen Gaekwad and Gundappa Viswanath which resulted in the match being awarded to Pakistan as the home side also took the ODI series with that. This was the first ever instance when a team conceded a game to the opposition in an ODI.

After 23 years in 2001, England captain Alec Stewart conceded an ODI to Pakistan at Leeds when the visiting side needed four runs in 61 balls following a pitch invasion by the crowd. This is the only other instance in ODI cricket till date where a team conceded the game. The 1996 World Cup semi-final game between India and Sri Lanka in Kolkata was abandoned after protests from the home crowd as the match officials declared Sri Lanka the winner by default.