MELBOURNE - All but one member of the Australian team who played in the 1986 tied Test against India will play in a charity reunion match in Chennai on March 17.

Dean Jones, the hero of that test and organiser of the reunion, said all the Australians would fly out to Chennai - which was known as Madras when the test was played - on March 14.

Jones said almost every Indian player would also participate in the 40-overs per side match, but bowling great Kapil Dev was still distancing himself from cricket after implication in the game's bribery scandal.

Former Indian captain Mohammad Azharrudin would also be absent after being banned for life as a result of the same scandal.

The umpires from the tied test, Dara Dotivalla and Vikram Raju, would officiate.

The famous test was only the second in history to be tied, after the Australia-West Indies test in Brisbane in 1960-61.

"Really the 1961 tour was the one that turned everything around for the West Indies and Australia," Jones told AAP.

"So 1986 for our relationship with India is important - there hasn't been any other famous matches against India, so this will be fabulous."

The match will be played at Gurunanak College the day before the current Australian and Indian teams met in the third Test in Chennai.

Therefore current Australian captain Steve Waugh, who played in the tied Test, will not be able to take part.

Jones said the two teams will play golf together in the two days between the Australians' arrival and the match, and will hold a charity dinner.

Aside from covering costs, money raised will be donated to agencies providing relief to victims of last month's earthquake in Gujarat.

Dev's name was dragged into the betting and match-fixing scandal after disgraced former fast bowler Manoj Prabhakar claimed the former captain tried to bribe him to play below potential in a Singer Cup match in Colombo in 1994.

Dev was exonerated by an investigation but resigned from coaching the Indian team, and had since distanced himself from the game.

"We're speaking to Kapil now, he isn't too happy with the game at the moment and we have to talk him around, get him out to a game of golf and a game of cricket," Jones said.

"It's an opportunity for him to catch up with the guys he played with and against and just to relive old times."

The Australian team that played in the tied test was David Boon, Geoff Marsh, Jones, Allan Border, Greg Ritchie, Greg Matthews, Waugh, Tim Zoehrer, Ray Bright, Craig McDermott and Bruce Reid.

India was Sunil Gavaskar, Kris Srikkanth, Mohinder Armanath, Azharrudin, Ravi Shastri, Chandrakant Pandit, Kapil, Kiran More, Chetan Sharma, Shivlal Yadav and Maninder Singh.

Jones scored 210 in the test, batting for 502 minutes in searing heat, bringing on cramp, nausea, hallucination and dehydration that required him to be hospitalised and put on a saline drip.

© 2001 AAP