Douglas Jardine positioned his Harlequins cap precisely on his head and looked around the dressing room. His team waited for him to speak. When it came, his voice was clipped but clear. “An hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name,” he said, and with that he led his side out into a broiling Adelaide day, soon to instigate the most tumultuous moments in the history of Test cricket.
By that night, January 14, 1933, cricketing relations between England and Australia were close to breaking. The impact of Jardine’s actions was to reach even further, jarring just about every relationship between the two countries. It turned England’s captain into one of the most despised figures in Australian sporting history, and at home he and his main accomplices — Harold Larwood and Bill Voce — were later to be cast aside by an embarrassed establishment. “
Jardine is insufferable and worse than any German I encountered in the war,” spluttered one senior MCC figure. But to his team, he was a true leader who had skilfully used the ferocious resources at his disposal to regain the Ashes in the Australians’ backyard. After Jardine’s death from cancer in 1958,
Bill Bowes said: “Douglas Jardine was the greatest captain England ever had. A great fighter, a grand friend and an unforgiving enemy.”
The foundations of Bodyline, a term coined by a journalist from the Melbourne Herald, were laid the previous summer. In 1930 Don Bradman had laid waste to England’s bowlers. MCC knew the size of the task that awaited their side on the 1932-33 tour and wanted a tough leader in charge. They turned to Jardine.
The Surrey skipper spent the summer travelling the counties, taking soundings from his fellow captains. He began to hatch a plan. Jardine believed that there were no genuinely quick bowlers in Australia and that their esteemed batsmen had never had to deal with such a test before. Leg theory, bowling fast and short with a packed leg-side field, was not new — that summer it had been practised by Nottinghamshire under Arthur Carr, who had Larwood and Voce in his attack. Jardine liked what he saw in the two pacemen, particularly Larwood, who could be thunderously quick. He had found his executioners.
Jardine always denied that the ploy was aimed solely at Bradman, but he believed that Bradman’s weakness was a tendency not to get into position properly when he hooked and pulled, especially if he had to face real, bristling pace, aimed at his body.
Bradman missed the first Test and Australia had no answer to Jardine’s plan, no matter that they knew exactly what to expect. “If I happen to get hit out there, keep Mum from jumping the fence and laying into those pommie bowlers,” said Stan McCabe to his father as he strapped on his pads. McCabe hit a glorious 187 not out, but Larwood took 10 wickets, the margin by which England triumphed.
In the second Test Bradman fell first ball — pulling a ball on to his stumps — but in the second innings he took on Larwood to score an exhilarating if unusually chancy century. He was aided by a turgid pitch that did much to negate Larwood’s menace, and Australia levelled the series.
By the time the teams arrived in Adelaide, there was growing discontent in Australia at England’s approach. Jardine’s perceived arrogance did little to ease rising tensions. To many Australians, from his quartered cap to his curt manner, he was a walking embodiment of the British establishment, a figure to be loathed. To Jardine, it mattered not. “It’s f****** mutual,” he told a teammate.
It was on day two that England took to the field, having made 341, and soon Australia were struggling. Bill Woodfull, their captain, was struck over the heart by a short ball from Larwood, bowling to a regular field. “Well bowled, Harold,” said Jardine loudly. After lengthy treatment, Woodfull bravely prepared to resume. Unmoved, Jardine clapped his hands and called for the leg-side field. Spectators growled in disbelief as Woodfull was assaulted by a short-pitched barrage; off the field mounted police were placed on standby as the authorities prepared for a riot. Bertie Oldfield suffered a cracked skull attempting to hook Larwood. “There are two teams out there; one is trying to play cricket and the other is not,” a livid Woodfull informed Pelham Warner, England’s manager. On the field the England players had other concerns.
“If anybody fires a pistol, they’ll lynch us,” Larwood told his teammates.
As the game progressed towards a crushing England victory, by 338 runs, the Australian board dispatched an angry cable to Lord’s. “Bodyline bowling has assumed such proportions as to menace the best interests of the game. Unless it is stopped at once, it is likely to upset the friendly relations between Australia and England.”
For several days the future of the tour was in doubt as cables flew around the world, but eventually the Ashes went on. And so did Bodyline.
In Brisbane, Eddie Paynter, the little Lancashire batsman, clambered out of his sick bed to help England clinch the series. In Sydney, England won again, helped by Larwood’s jaunty 98. The crowd cheered off Larwood the batsman. But he was exhausted. He had bowled himself into the ground and taken 33 wickets at 19.5. He played the last Test with a broken bone in his foot, yet to the end responded loyally to the urges of his captain to bombard the batsmen. He never played for England again. Bradman averaged 56.6, more than 40 fewer than his final Test mark. Bodyline worked; England regained the Ashes 4-1.
Jardine, the amateur, was not treated as cruelly as Larwood, a hapless scapegoat, but his future as England’s captain was limited and his reputation as a sportsman, something he held so dear, was tarnished. MCC, which had strongly supported its captain at first, began to shift its position and in 1934 “Bodyline” was outlawed.
In 1950 Larwood closed down his Blackpool sweet shop and emigrated to Australia, where he was warmly welcomed. There was no antipathy towards the honest professional, one of England’s greatest fast bowlers. That was reserved for Jardine — not that it ever appeared to bother him. Some 20 years later he returned to Australia. “How does it feel to be back?” he was asked. “It’s a nice place,” replied Jardine, “except for two things — the climate and the inhabitants.”
