From the archives: the Bodyline series

Don Bradman and Harold Larwood, oddly enough, were alike in several ways. They were supremely single-mind-ed and they each displayed a ferocious determination never to let anything obstruct their path, one as a run-maker, administrator and businessman, the other as a dominant fast-bowling force. Their duels during that torrid Australian summer of 1932-33 have been likened to the sheriff (Bradman) facing the gunslinger (Larwood), and the end result - sweat-soaked “Clint” Larwood coming away with the honours – was as gleefully received in England as it was resented and morally questioned in Australia.

By the cricket laws of the time, Larwood had not been employing unfair tactics. But his barrage of express balls at throat and chest from the moment the new ball lost its gloss (and with it its propensity to swing in days when reverse swing was unknown or at least unrecognised) was considered immoral by the unforgiving Bradman, by his teammates, by his captain, Bill Woodfull, and by almost the entire population of Australia. The fielders waiting for catches close in on the leg side were viewed as bloodthirsty vultures and England’s iron-willed captain, Douglas Jardine, was the most detested person in the wide compass of Australia’s history.

It was exquisite revenge for Larwood, who had suffered day after day at Bradman’s hands through previous series of unavailing toil in Australia in 1928-29 and during Bradman’s supreme summer of 1930 in England. Only once in all those matches had the Notts express dismissed him and even then there was a suggestion that the wicketkeeper’s catch had come off Bradman’s shirt sleeve.

Larwood was frustrated. Not only did his inability to disturb Australia’s superstar annoy him, but the old leg-before law continued to anger him, too, as it did all bowlers of that period. Batsmen could pad away with impunity anything that pitched outside off stump. This, as much as Bradman’s supremacy itself, was the underlying cause of bodyline.

Larwood’s elation at having brought Bradman to heel in the 1932-33 series ran to excess. He put his name to some insulting stuff in a British newspaper after this Empire-rocking Test series. This deepened the sense of outrage. Some of Bradman’s teammates were displeased at the run-machine’s strategy of dancing around the crease. Obsessed with a determination not to be hit, he sought most of his runs somewhere in the almost empty off-side field. But while Australian criticism of their superstar was just about permissible, in the view of the nation, Larwood, the Englishman, should have kept his gibes to himself.

Bradman permitted himself a rare public response after that provocative 1933 newspaper tirade, teasingly spotlighting Larwood’s financial gain from publishing his opinions and warning the speedster that the crowds might be after him next time he toured Australia (not that that would have been anything new). Larwood refused to sign the apology for his bowling that his erstwhile employers, Marylebone Cricket Club, had outrageously demanded and never played for England again.

There was little point in raising the subject of Larwood, Jardine or bodyline in Bradman’s presence. No matter how free-flowing general conversations used to be, this would have been a step too far. It would have been even more provocative than the back-foot, no-ball law, which the ageing Don so dearly wanted to see restored. His opinion on the outrages of bodyline had already been clearly and concisely expressed in his autobiography. To have pressed further would have drawn a steely glare and tightened lips, spoiling the occasion.

By contrast, to be a member of that steady stream of pilgrims to Harold Larwood’s home near Sydney airport in the years after his unlikely emigration to Australia in 1950 was to avail oneself of a well-oiled flow of reminiscence and inflexible opinion.

The large photograph of England’s 1932-33 touring team hung in a position of pride on the wall. As Lois, his wife, made tea, Harold would bring out the scrapbooks and the presentation ashtray from England’s vilified leader: “To Harold for the Ashes . . . From a grateful skipper.” There was never a moment’s reassessment, even though the old Empire had been seriously rocked by bodyline – or “leg theory”, as “Lol” insisted on calling it.

So one might have expected that Bradman and Larwood would have steered well clear of each other for the remainder of their lives. Yet they did meet subsequently on several occasions, if only by chance. By now, in an unlikely confluence of detail, they were both honorary life members of MCC. Neither man in later life was really the type to snub the other blatantly, even though when they had last been physically adjacent, leaving the field at Sydney after Bradman’s final dismissal in the 1932-33 series, Larwood limping off, too, with a broken foot, these battling cricketers had exchanged not even a glance.

There was a polite exchange when they met on a social occasion during Bradman’s farewell tour in 1948 and again when they happened upon each other in a Sydney street four years later. By the time of the Centenary Test celebrations in Melbourne in 1977, both were caught up in the festival of bonhomie, which enveloped young and old alike and was so overwhelming that, had they been there, too, J. Edgar Hoover might have found himself warmly shaking John Dillinger’s hand. Harold and Don talked and were photographed together. And years later, Bradman sent a congratulatory telegram to Larwood upon learning that the former fast bowler, by then 88 and blind, had been appointed MBE.

There was no such reconciliation between Bradman and Jardine. Jim Kilburn of the Yorkshire Post mischievously positioned them side by side in the Headingley press box when they were writing for newspapers on the 1953 Tests. The perfunctory acknowl-edgements at the start were followed by only rare comments, brief disagreements as they observed Hutton’s team waging mean combat with Hassett’s. And when Jardine died in 1958, Bradman decided against offering a tribute.

David Frith’s Bodyline Autopsy (ABC Books, 2002) was Wisden’s Book of the Year and a finalist in the William Hill Sports Book Award