The more things change...
Ashes cricket continues to provide
As England girds itself to get back into the Ashes series, courtesy of a pink ball, day-night Test in Brisbane, surely one of the more daunting challenges in Test cricket, especially when playing the style of game they are committed to, it is hard to avoid comparisons with events during the 1932-33 Bodyline series.
Playing styles have been part and parcel of all things Ashes, and the Bodyline series was top of the list in the controversy stakes. The Bazball series, as it has been called, is well down the list, but it adds extra to the clash of styles in the game.
At the time of Bodyline, England embarked on a deliberate plan of intimidation of Australia’s batters, and especially Don Bradman, with short-pitched fast bowling backed by a specific leg-side fielding plan, under the command of captain Douglas Jardine.
It is not an apples-to-apples comparison between 1932-33 and 2025. Instead, it’s a clash of style and response, and this time around, the Australian hosts are still attempting to play cricket, while England has embraced a style of play as loose in its execution as Jardine’s was insistent on a tightness of bowling application.
The difference this time is that it is not the Australian media voicing its concern; it is the visitors’ sizeable media brigade who want to call time on the freedom of batting expression that led to England’s consecutive middle-order batting collapses in the first Test.
Some of the reflections from that earlier era make for interesting reading in how cricket was perceived from different standpoints.
Former New Zealand batsman Roger Blunt, who had returned to England in the wake of the 1931 tour by New Zealand to take up a career in Sir Julien Cahn’s business empire, offered an independent view of proceedings.
Interest in the Test matches has, of course, been intense, but people have been somewhat sickened by the hysteria into which part of the Australian public has worked themselves over the inability of some of their batsmen to cope with the fast bowling.
The M.C.C.’s reply to that dreadfully worded cable of the Board of Control has just appeared, and, to any reasonably minded lover of cricket, the firm and dignified wording of that reply seemed to be admirably suited to the situation.
A man who has come out of the whole unpleasant business with flying colours is Jardine. I consider he has been wonderfully tolerant throughout.
Here is a point. I have seen the Test match reports here in 1921. Every report is interspersed with the notes of so and so being struck on the head, neck, ribs, arms, or thighs by the deliveries of [Jack] Gregory, ‘who was bowling with tremendous speed, and bumping head high,’ but none of the England papers suggested that Gregory or [Ted] McDonald were trying to hit the batsmen. They blamed England’s batsmen for being unable to cope with the bowling, which was ‘not to be compared with the bowling of the old days by gad.’
Yet because Larwood bowls with some fielders on the leg side, he must, of course, be trying to hit the poor batsmen. Was it just a coincidence that at Melbourne, where Australia won, little was heard of ‘bodyline’ bowling (a ghastly expression)? [1]
Former Australian leg-spinner Arthur Mailey, a member of the 1921 side, had turned newspaperman by this time and, like Blunt, had little quarrel with England’s tactics.
Throughout the tour, the Australian batsmen, with the glorious exception of [Bill] Woodfull and, to a lesser degree, Bradman and [Victor] Richardson, let Australia down because of their particular inability to play Larwood.
Woodfull has been a Briton right through the series. This man of peace has had sufficient mental and physical agony to last him for some time.
Whatever we might think about the wisdom of fast leg theory bowling, Woodfull stuck to his belief right through the tour and did not deviate from his original opinion of this new form of bowling.
There were times when he could have adopted it with benefit to his own side, but refrained from so doing because it abused his principle.
Looking back, I must admit that there were times when I thought Woodfull’s methods were too gentle, and that an extra man or two should have been transferred to the leg side when Wall was bowling his fastest. But Woodfull thought otherwise, and now we find him, having mastered the Larwood menace, still believing that bodyline bowling is not in the best interests of cricket.
Whether he was right or wrong, Australia is lucky to have such a resolute and courageous captain.
Larwood was really the bete noire of the Australian team. He had a very embarrassing influence, particularly on those batsmen who depended on sheer skill and grace. His great mission was to crush the amazing Bradman, and if he did not succeed in his object, he shook the Bowral lad rather badly. [2]
Mailey added that, since 1930, Australia had become too dependent on Bradman’s colossal scoring. He believed that when Bradman could no longer score at such a level, Australia would lose the Ashes.
We can attribute Bradman’s comparative failure to Larwood. Larwood’s success set up new standards in comparative values. [3]
The irony of the first Test is that without all the column inches indulged in by the British press, Australia quietly got on with the job and took their chances to pressure the tourists and then take apart their preferred action plan with a display of batting dominance that drew comparison with Ian Botham’s match-stealing efforts of the 1981 series.
All of which proves that when it comes to sporting drama, there is nothing quite like Test cricket to stir the blood.
[1] Roger Blunt, The Star (Christchurch), 10 March 1932
[2] Arthur Mailey, The Star (Christchurch), ibid
[3] Mailey, ibid