From the archives: the Bodyline series

In January 1933, midway through the third Test match in Adelaide, something extraordinary happened: Viscount Lewisham, president of Marylebone Cricket Club, Lord Great Chamberlain, distinguished war veteran and scion of an ancient aristocratic family, was woken in the middle of the night to be told that Australia’s cricket board had sent a rude cable complaining about the “bodyline bowling” by England.

That such an august personage should be roused from his bed was, in itself, a mark of how serious the Bodyline row had become. There had been sporting spats before, but a dispute so important that it could not let sleeping viscounts lie was unheard of. These were the days of Empire, after all; and that was part of the point.

Bodyline was never just a cricketing disagreement; it was a clash between countries with contrasting images of themselves and of each other, a dispute coloured by history that threatened to erupt into a diplomatic and political crisis. It took place against a background of one war, with another looming, a strained alliance and economic uncertainty.

The telegram that disturbed the noble’s slumbers read: “Bodyline bowling assumed such proportions as to menace best interests of game, making protection of body by batsmen the main consideration. Causing intensely bitter feeling between players, as well as injury. In our opinion is unsports-manlike. Unless stopped at once likely to upset friendly relations existing between Australia and England.”

“No one can call an Englishman unsporting and get away with it,” Gubby Allen, the all-rounder, who had refused to take part in the have fullest confidence in captain and team.” It ended with the threat that if the Australians wanted to cancel the rest of the tour, MCC would accede “with great reluctance”. What had begun as a disagreement about tactics was now a debate about gentlemanly conduct, a far more serious matter.

There was outrage in England and Australia. Some correspondents in the English press implied that the Australians were “squealing” simply because they were losing and raised again the ghosts of Gallipoli and the (entirely unfounded) suggestion that Australian soldiers had not distinguished themselves in that bloody encounter.

The Governor of South Australia, Sir Alexander Hore-Ruthven, warned the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, James Henry Thomas, that the dispute could have serious economic consequences for both countries. Thomas later said: “No politics ever introduced into the British Empire caused me so much trouble as this damn bodyline bowling.”

Joseph Lyons, the Australian Prime Minister, was alarmed enough to intercede, pointing out to the Australian board the economic calamity in the event of a British boycott. On the eve of the fourth Test, another cable arrived at MCC: “We do not regard the sportsmanship of your team as being in question. It is the particular class of bowling . . . which we consider is not in the best interests of cricket.”

It was rather less than a climbdown, but mollifying enough to bring peace. The younger cricket country had flexed its muscles and the diplomatic row would not be quickly forgotten. A few years later, an ear was broken off a statue of Prince Albert, in Sydney, and the word “Bodyline” scrawled across the monument.

The aristocratic rulers of English cricket had exerted their sporting and political dominance, but the experience had been a bruising one. I wonder if Viscount Lewisham ever slept quite so soundly again.