Circa 1932-33. The future, if anything, looked bleak for English cricket, thanks to the phenomenal, and extraordinary, capabilities of a one-man ‘nuclear taskforce’ — Sir Don Bradman. What’s more, it was also a time when the enormously endowed Aussie had looked most likely to carrying on with his ecstatic occupation of crucifying England’s finest bowlers — for a long time to come. Centuries, to the Don, after all, meant just a little; double hundreds, some task; and, triple tons, something of a relative achievement.
The situation was provocative — a powder keg. English cricket was sure sitting on a volcano in its full fury. Its resourcefulness, or the famous bulldog tenacity in tough circumstances, was, once again, being put to the ultimate test — this time in cricket, a national pride.
England has had a historical penchant to thrive in crises — right from the early course of narration to the days of Oliver Cromwell, Horatio Nelson and others. It had also always shown that it’s not-too-difficult for its heroes to work, or chisel, a method needed to bring pride, victory, comfort, relief, and succour. Cricket was no different.
A whole new idea emanated from the grease-lightning mindset of a gaunt, hard-faced six-footer, by the name of Douglas Jardine [October 23, 1900-June 18, 1958], born in India, educated at Oxford. An unrelenting competitor, what with his no-holds-barred attitude, Jardine’s appointment as England captain, for the Test series in Australia, did not arouse any curiosity, or sensation — in Melbourne, or Adelaide. If it did invite a note of warning, it emanated from Rockley Wilson, Jardine’s cricket teacher in school. His prophesy, “Jardine will regain the Ashes, but England stands a good chance of losing a colony.”
No eyebrows were raised when England named its players — all big names in the sport. The bowling was entrusted to three quickies, Harold Larwood, Bill Voce and Gubby Allen. Nothing suspicious, really. But, what had, in actuality, transpired a register of thought in the English camp, or think-tank, was a point of reference to Bradman’s supposed uncertainty in facing Larwood, in the Final Test at the Oval, in 1930, when the sturdy coal miner had made the ball lift ferociously off a damp wicket. Jardine, of course, did not expect a soggy Aussie summer. All the same, he was cock-a-hoop with his ‘masterly’ game plan.
Jardine banked his wherewithal on Larwood, his ‘howitzer’ weapon, on rock-hard wickets, Down Under. All he wanted his bowlers to do was bowl short and make the red cherry bounce — disconcertingly. A daunting mission from the physical aspect of things — but, Jardine was not really concerned even if his bowlers were to suffer bruised heels, lose toe nails, or have swollen knees, so long as they could knock the stuffing out of Bradman, the English captain’s key target — the pillar of Aussie batting.
This was not all. When Indian Prince Duleepsinhji dropped out of the touring party, before the team set sail for Australia, Jardine brought in Bill Bowes, a stiff paceman, and rabbit with the bat, to replace the prince — the second best batsman in the side after Wally Hammond. The move was ominous; Jardine’s intrigue had achieved its fruition, albeit by default. However this may be, the first few warm-up games were uneventful and devoid of the drama that was to unfold later. In what looked like the most crucial match, against an Australian XI, before the Tests, which included Bradman, Jardine himself, ever the politician, chose not to take part. He allowed his deputy, the quiet and efficient Bob Wyatt, to unveil his new bowling theory — bodyline. Result — the Don’s wicket fell twice, to Larwood, for a mere 49 runs. The Don, for once, had showed signs of being rattled by hostile bowling — directed at his rib-cage — with close-in supporting fieldsmen all set to dive like seals and hold onto anything that went in the air. Jardine’s diabolical experiment, in absentia, seemed to have worked.
Bradman missed the First Test owing to ill-health. England romped home to victory by 10 wickets. The only saving grace for Australia, in the nerve-shattering match, was Stan McCabe’s brilliant 187, achieved in the thick of it all. It was one of the finest innings ever played. McCabe, through the course of his memorable essay, had almost all by himself destroyed Jardine’s bodyline blueprint. Bradman was stirred by his team-mate’s grand effort.
Eulogised ‘Tiger’ Bill O’Reilly, the legendary leggie, and cricket writer, who played in all of the five bodyline Tests: “It was an inspiring sight to me as I watched that 22-year-old boy, my close friend [McCabe], getting down the pitch after both Larwood and Voce, even though they persisted in pitching short and bouncing ’em. He so dominated the English pace attack that he forced Jardine to remove men — sometimes eight of them — from close-catching positions.”
Bodyline had its share of contrasts, notwithstanding its diabolical intent. In O’Reilly’s view, “The bodyline field devised by Jardine made the use of the bat a hopeless proposition for even the most gifted, fleet-footed batsmen. Consistently attaining shoulder-height, or higher, and bowled accurately just a trifle outside the leg stump so that it threatened life and limb, and launched at the bowler’s top speed, most Australian batsmen found it quite useless to present their bat either in defence of their stumps, or in self-preservation, or in attack, when the ‘sconner’ was bowled.” This was not all. If the Aussie batsmen did not duck in time, or sway out of harm’s way, the effect would be devastating, on their ‘helmetless’ heads. Forget about protective gear, or device; there was none of the kind available at the time.
To glean Jardine’s analysis, “I am sorry to disappoint anyone who has imagined the leg theory was evolved with the help of midnight oil and iced towels solely for the purpose of combating Bradman’s effectiveness as a scoring machine. It did, however, seem a reasonable assumption that a weakness in one of Australia’s premier batsmen might find more than a replica in the play of a good many of his contemporaries.” In addition, Jardine, who had thought of bodyline for long, also attributed it to a ‘sudden inspiration,’ during the first match of the tour — in Perth. “To our surprise, we found an almost totally unexpected weakness on the leg stump in the play of several leading players. This has been particularly apparent in the case of Bradman… when he came [to Perth] to play against us.”
Larwood, the greatest ‘exponent’ of bodyline, was no less a befuddled chap by himself. In May 1933, he reportedly said, when queried about his own ‘take’ on bodyline, that, “[Bill] Woodfull was too slow, and Bradman was too frightened. Yes, frightened. He was scared of my bowling.” Forty years later, the same Larwood had this to say, “Bradman… used to back away, not because he’s scared, but to try and make room to hit me through the off-side.” In a TV interview, in 1977, Larwood, who had made Australia his home, however, changed his view again and described bodyline as a ‘plot,’ and corroborated one of his 1965 statements, that, “It [bodyline] was devised to stifle Bradman’s batting genius… They said I was a killer with the ball without taking into account [that] Bradman, with the bat, was the greatest killer of all.”
Be that as it may, and in spite of the ferocity of bodyline, Bradman revealed what stuff he was made of. Although he was initially subdued, the great man was able to come to terms with the ploy and managed to score runs. Sure, the usual ‘Bradmanesque’ flourish wasn’t as evident; but, the effect of his glorious magnetism was obvious. No doubt, the bodyline series also wasn’t Bradman’s best by his own benchmark, albeit the whole idea was but an affront to the game — no more, no less. As Wally Hammond wrote, after his retirement: “I believe that only good luck was responsible for the fact that no one was killed by bodyline. If I’d have gone to face it, I would have got out of the game… I [also] doubt if there was any answer to such bowling unless grave risks of injury were courted.”
Not all of Jardine’s four fast-men were in favour of bodyline — and, the English captain understood it. Allen, for one, refused to comply with his skipper’s infamous invention. When Jardine once became too persistent, Allen was reported to have told him: “Well, I’m not going to, and if you don’t like the way I bowl, you’d better leave me out — [but] I would add that if you do, every word you’ve said here today will be made public when I get home.” Allen took 21 wickets in the Tests, in comparison to Bowes’ one — without once resorting to bodyline.
Bodyline was, doubtless, an outrage, although the English defended their ‘hoity-toity’ design. However, when the West Indies toured England, a year later, Learie Constantine and ‘Manny’ Martindale, employed Jardine’s weapon in the Second Test at Manchester. In the wake of reality, and also bitter after-taste of their own medicine, the English players made a volte–face. Wicket-keeper George Duckworth and Pelham Warner, who had never voiced their remonstration against the use of bodyline when they were on the winning side, Down Under, complained bitterly, “It was breeding anger, hatred, and malice.” Nonetheless, it took some time for the English Cricket Board to give its much-awaited diktat: “Any form of bowling which is obviously a direct attack by the bowler upon batsmen should be considered as an offence against the spirit of the game.”
Speak of English candour and justice, and such qualities emerged sparklingly, thereafter. The Aussies, who had simmered with rage vis-à-vis the bodyline duplicity earlier, when one committee in the UK had inappropriately ‘baptised’ it as ‘fast leg theory,’ and not bodyline, may have thanked the Caribbean pace merchants for unleashing that much-needed lethal dose — one which eventually opened up British cricket’s floodgates of logic.
There was one man who had triumphed with his remarkable silence. Aussie skipper, Bill Woodfull, a leader in his own right, who never ever retaliated with a ‘Machiavellian’ theory a la bodyline. His solemn quietude had England ‘nurse’ its ‘self-engineered’ indignity, or gruesome alchemy. This soon made cricket, cricket again.
— First published in Financial Chronicle
