From the archives: the Bodyline series

Bodyline, three quarters of a century on, is a scar on the body politic of Australia - long since healed but a distinctive, identifying mark. And like an old war wound, it may occasionally throb or tingle.

It is Old Australia that is still scarred: of today’s country of 21 million people (it had fewer than seven million in 1932), one in four traces their origin outside the Commonwealth and finds little meaning in cricket. And young Australia, whether or not British by background, is much more interested in today and tomorrow than in ancient history.

It is ridiculous to argue, as some fanciful commentators have done, that Bodyline threatened the Empire and that Australia might even have seceded to become an independent state.

E. Rockley Wilson, the former England bowler who had taught Douglas Jardine at Winchester, forecast bleakly when his former pupil was made captain of the touring party: “We shall win the Ashes – but we may very well lose a Dominion.” But it was a philosophical rather than a political assessment.

However, that few weeks of increasingly unhappy cricket certainly strained relations between Dominion and Mother Country in an age when Australians, almost exclusively British by background, looked on Britain as home.

There were no spin doctors to massage the facts: cricket administrators debated with political leaders, diplomats and newspaper executives, hoping that the heat of the argument could be cooled by media restraint.

Jardine, brought up to the belief of his caste in self-control and restraint, could not understand how Australia tolerated the raucous behaviour of its cricket crowds, where an egalitarian nation bellowed its blunt opinions, seeing no reason to be polite to pommy cricketers.

But if a common theme among British commentators was that the Australian press was largely to blame for the fuss, egging on an easily excited crowd, then there is little doubt that the man in the Australian street was truly stirred. There was genuine astonishment across Australia at the England bowling tactics: we were supposed to be the rough and ready colonials, to be set an example by our cultivated English cousins, and yet here they were, behaving “like lesser breeds without the law”.

The impact was all the more distinct and significant because of the era in which the 1932-33 series was played. Depression had hit Australia desperately hard: a 30-year-old emerging commonwealth, still seeking to stake a place in world affairs, both politically and economically, had to struggle against desperate unemployment and consequent poverty.

In 1931, Australia’s birthrate was the lowest it has been before or since - a pointer to the lack of confidence in the future held by ordinary Australians. The nation had little claim on the world’s attention: the gold rushes of the 19th century were in the past and it was primarily on the sporting field that anything had been achieved to match others.

Above all, Australia had found in Don Bradman a batsman of astonishing talent, touching genius: no one could match his extraordinary run-getting skills, even if (English) connoisseurs criticised his technique and then, as he made more runs despite that flaw, his style, or lack of it.

The Australian working man, perhaps unemployed or, if in work, frugally paid – the New South Wales basic wage was slashed by 15 per cent as the England team landed – could at least find reward in attending a modestly priced Test match. He did so in the expectation of watching Bradman bat Australia to another Ashes victory – as he had pretty much done in England in 1930. It was one bright hope in a grim era. And when it did not happen, when the national idol was cut down by what most Australians saw as unfair tactics, unfair to the point of cheating, then the resentment was bitter.

There was a distinct feeling that England was pulling rank, or muscle, over her distant Dominion, and not just on the sporting field. Protectionist duties imposed on imported British goods were a cause of national friction, Australian business feeling that London had shown little understanding of Australia’s financial problems.

British banks indicated scant sympathy as it became increasingly difficult for Australian state or federal governments to raise money on the London market. And a row over a substantial loan from the British Government, which Australia found difficulty in repaying, added to the ill-feeling at political and diplomatic level.

It meant unprecedented antagonism right across the Australian spectrum, from politicians and business-men, to working-class Aussies feeling vaguely that Mother England was not doing enough to help her distant offspring in harsh economic times.

The impact of Bodyline on the wider population stemmed from the universal popularity of cricket. All Australians were cricket supporters in the Thirties: they knew the game, they watched the game, they played the game – and they felt defeat deeply, especially when achieved by controversial tactics.

There was fierce barracking of Jardine and his men that was increasingly resented by the touring party. Back home, English attitudes were inflamed by the clumsy Australian Board of Control cable suggesting the England tactics to be “unsporting”. Old cricketers and commentators rushed into print to accuse the colonials of squealing. Relationships between both countries were distinctly soured.

But away from the grounds, there were no demonstrations, no burning of Jardine in effigy (let alone of the Union Flag), no impassioned public meetings calling for sanctions against perfidious Albion. And there is no record of Australian visitors to England being booed in the streets or of English tourists in Australia being hissed.

It was national honour that was scarred, not personal feelings. And bizarrely, there was no diminution in the hospitality traditionally offered to the MCC party off the field.

In the finish, it was business concerns that put a plaster over the wound, when MCC, in a masterstroke of strategy, offered to cancel the tour if this was what Australia wished.

The host nation did not wish such an abrupt end to a series that, whatever else, was clicking the turnstiles nonstop with record attendances. The tour was completed and the Ashes series resumed in England only 16 months later.

And when on September 3, 1939, Robert Menzies, the Australia Prime Minister, immediately followed Nev-ille Chamberlain’s declaration of war upon Nazi Germany to stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain, it was instant confirmation that Dominion and Mother Country were bound close by ties that could not be threatened by fuss over a game - even the greatest of games.

What the Times said

“The news that the Test match at Adelaide had come to an end was received in this country with that feeling of relief which comes to a man when a turbulent tooth ceases to ache. If we can penetrate the fog of nonsense which has enveloped this match we can find a wealth of splendid cricket. The bowling of the Australians has been one of the finest features and has received scant recognition [but] England’s bowling was too good for most of the Australian batsmen.” - January 20, 1933

“It seems funny that a few years ago we were all agreed that cricket was being ‘killed’ by ‘mammoth scores’ and that as soon as a means is devised of keeping scores down to a reasonable size cricket is ‘killed’ again. It is the laugh of the year that batsmen should break the hearts of bowlers by protecting their wickets with their persons, and that, when at last the bowler accepts the challenge and bowls at their persons, the outraged batsmen should shriek that he is not playing cricket.” – A. A. Milne, letter to the Editor

“MCC’s reply to the protest by the Australian Board of Control against ‘bodyline’ bowling has been received with mixed feelings in Australia, but scarcely anyone believes that the board will request the tour to be cancelled. The dignified wording of the MCC cable has greatly impressed the thoughtful Australians, whose cable was thought to be blundering and hastily worded.” – January 25, 1933

“The English captain is free to employ whatever bowling tactics he considers suitable. If, however, there is any recrudescence of the disorderly behaviour which marred the third Test it is possible that MCC may issue orders for the abandonment of the tour.” – February 1, 1933

Written approval

Amid all the debates about players drinking, Twenty20 and television rights, there is one topic for guaranteed cricketing argument: bodyline. Many Englishmen defend Jardine’s tactics, most Australians do not. Interest in the series and its methods is reflected in periodic media coverage, and the appearance of another book.

Roy Ramsbottom, an enthusiast from Cheshire, for years collected material for a study, to be titled Harold and Mr Jardine, backing the tactics. As a preliminary he published a monograph last year, Pamphlets and Programmes of the 1932-33 MCC Tour. Sadly, Ramsbottom died days after this limited edition appeared and his main work will never be published. But it seems certain that others will take up the bodyline torch.

Murray Hedgcock is a London-based Australian journalist whose interest in Bodyline was sparked when at the age of ten, he was told his new school head-master was to be W. M. Woodfull