Six and Out - Some Serious Cricket

In My Day : The Bodyline Tour

by SixandOut on August 13th, 2006

In the first “In My Day” post, I’m looking back to the infamous “Bodyline tour”, a cricketing tactic devised by the English cricket team for their 1932–33 tour of Australia, specifically to combat the extraordinary batting skill of Australia’s Don Bradman. Bodyline bowlers deliberately aimed the cricket ball at the bodies of batsmen, in the hope of creating legside deflections that could be caught by one of several fielders located in the quadrant of the field behind square leg. And also to injure people.

The Australian cricket team toured England in 1930. Australia won the five-Test series 2-1, with Don Bradman scoring an astounding 974 runs at a batting average of 139.14, an aggregate record that stands to this day. After the series, Douglas Jardine – who was later appointed England’s captain for the 1932–33 English tour of Australia – devised a plan with Nottinghamshire captain Arthur Carr and his two fast bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, that if they could bowl on leg stump and make the ball come up into the body of the batsman, it could possibly giving catching chances to the close-set leg side field. This was known as “Fast leg theory”.

The English players first tried their tactic in a first-class tour match against an Australian XI in Perth, a game in which Jardine rested and gave the captaincy duties to his deputy Bob Wyatt. Seeing the bruising balls hit the Australian batsmen on several occasions in this game and the next angered the spectators. In the Test matches, Bradman countered Bodyline by moving toward the leg side, away from the line of the ball, and cutting it into the vacant off side field. Whilst this was dubious in terms of batting technique, it seemed the best way to cope with the barrage.

Whilst moderately successful as a tactic (England regained The Ashes with a 4-1 margin), the Australian crowds abhorred Bodyline as vicious and unsporting. Matters came to a head in the third Test at Adelaide, when Larwood struck Australian captain Bill Woodfull above the heart and fractured wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield’s skull (although this was from a top edge). Tension and feelings ran so high that a riot was narrowly averted as police stationed themselves between the players and enraged spectators. However, at the time England were not using the Bodyline tactics. Woodfull was struck when he was bent over his bat and wicket – and not when upright as often imagined. The crowd was incensed, and popular imagination blurred, when Jardine ordered his team to move to Bodyline positions immediately after Woodfull’s injury.

In a famous quotation, Bill Woodfull said to the England tour manager Pelham Warner, when the latter came to express his sympathy for Woodfull’s injury: “I don’t want to see you, Mr Warner. There are two teams out there. One is trying to play cricket and the other is not.”

This escalated into a diplomatic incident between the countries as the MCC — supported by the British public and still under the impression that their fast leg theory tactic was harmless — took serious offence at being branded “unsportsmanlike” and demanded a retraction. Jardine, and by extension the entire English team, threatened to withdraw from the fourth and fifth Tests unless the Australian Board withdrew the accusation of unsporting behaviour. Public reaction in both England and Australia was outrage directed at the other nation. The Governor of South Australia, Alexander Hore-Ruthven, who was in England at the time, expressed his concern to British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs James Henry Thomas that this would cause a significant impact on trade between the nations. The standoff was settled only when Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons met with members of the Australian Board and outlined to them the severe economic hardships that could be caused in Australia if the British public boycotted Australian trade. Given this understanding, the Board withdrew the allegation of unsportsmanlike behaviour two days before the fourth Test, thus saving the tour.

Bodyline continued to be bowled occasionally in the 1933 English season — most notably by Nottinghamshire, who had Carr, Voce and Larwood in their team. This gave the English crowds their first chance to see what all the fuss was about. Jardine himself had to face bodyline bowling in a Test match. The West Indian cricket team toured England in 1933, and, in the second Test at Old Trafford, Jackie Grant, their captain, decided to try bodyline. He had a couple of fast bowlers, Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine. Facing bodyline tactics for the first time, England first suffered, falling to 134 for 4, with Wally Hammond being hit on the chin, though he recovered to continue his innings. Then Jardine himself faced Martindale and Constantine. Jardine never flinched. He played right back to the bouncers, standing on tiptoe, and, no doubt partly because he didn’t care for the hook shot, played them with a dead bat. Whilst the Old Trafford pitch was not as suited to bodyline as the hard Australian wickets, Martindale did take 5 for 73, but Constantine only took 1 for 55. Jardine himself made 127, his only Test century.

In the second West Indian innings, Clark bowled bodyline back to the West Indians, taking 2 for 64. The match in the end was drawn; it was also the highest-profile game in which bodyline was bowled in England.

As a direct consequence of the 1932–33 tour, the MCC introduced a new rule to the laws of cricket in 1934. Specifically, umpires were now given the power — and the responsibility — to intervene if they considered a bowler was deliberately aiming at a batsman with intent to injure. Some 25 years later, another rule was introduced banning the placement of more than two fielders in the quadrant of the field behind square leg, effectively diminishing the effectiveness of the fast leg theory.

Later law changes, under the heading of “Intimidatory Short Pitched Bowling”, also restricted the number of “bouncers” which may be bowled in an over. Nevertheless, the tactic of intimidating the batsman is still used to an extent that would have been shocking in 1933, although it is less dangerous now because today’s players wear helmets and generally far more protective gear. The West Indies teams of the 1980s, which regularly fielded a bowling attack comprising some of the best fast bowlers in cricket history, were perhaps the most feared exponents.

Both before and after World War II, numerous satirical cartoons and comedy skits were written, mostly in Australia, based on events of the Bodyline tour. Generally, they poked fun at the English. In 1984, Australia’s Network Ten produced a television miniseries titled Bodyline: It’s Just Not Cricket, dramatising the events of the 1932–33 English tour of Australia. To this day, the Bodyline tour remains one of the most significant events in the history of cricket, and strong in the consciousness of many cricket followers. In a poll of cricket journalists, commentators, and players in 2004, the Bodyline tour was ranked the most important event in cricket history.

(Main sources: Wikipedia, BBC.)

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