The most talked about cricket series ever!

Myriad series has been played under the sun between teams but the one that shall be etched in every cricket afficionado’s memory will be the one played between Douglas Jardine’s England against Bill Woodfull’s Australians in the 1932/33 Ashes labeled now as the famous and fateful ‘Bodyline’ series.
The series threatened to disrupt the future of cricket.

 

Jardine, a naughty product of Winchester and Oxford landed in Australia with his Englishmen and had chalked out a plan of bowling short-pitched and deployed his protegee Bill Voce and Harold Larwood to fight against the all-conquering Sir Don, who had by then become the sporting icon of the Australians.

“The Don” had been busy scripting one cricketing success after another since making a memorable debut in the year 1928. The Aussies won the 1930 series 2-1 in England and Don had scored a whopping 974 runs at an unimaginable average of 139.14. That world record still stand as I write this piece.

So what was jardine’s plan?
The englishmen wanted larwood and voce to bowl a leg-stump linE. HIS CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS WERE, “BOWL AT THE LEG STUMP, MAKE THE BALL CLIMB ONTO THE AUSSIE BATSMAN’S BODY.”
The theory is now famously called as the ‘Bodyline’ series.
January 1933, Adelaide Oval, venue for the third Test match in that series saw spectators seething with anger and threatening to disrupt the proceedings of the whole match between the Poms and the Aussies.
That Test is known for the spectators’ unfriendly behaviour towards an even hostile tourists, threatening to claim the Ashes at ‘ANY’ cost.

Bumpers were literally hurled at the Aussie skipper Bill Woodfull. Larwood’s seething delivery stuck wicketkeeper’s Bert Oldfield’s temple. The keeper collapsed and had to be carried back to the pavilion.
If you thought, only Anil Kumble made the now famous statement after the Sydney Test in 2008 series Down Under, think again. Woodfull, the Australian captain had then said, “There are only two teams out there and only one of them is playing cricket.”
There were heated verbal volleys being fought between off the cricketing pitch too. Negotiations to save the series were being undertaken as diplomatic ties between Great Britain and Australia had stooped to a new low.
The end result was a 4-1 victory for the Poms, bringing in cheer to Jardine. That particular series brought the Don’s Test average down to a mortal 56.57. The batting legend could only manage 396 runs in the 4-Test series with just ‘ONE’ hundred to his name.

The Story thereafter for the stars!

Don’s fans would rue the fact that without that series, the legend would have finished with an average of 104.76 instead of the famous 99.94.

Harold Larwood who claimed 33 wickets at a staggering average of 19.51, strangely never played for his side again.

Not surprisingly, Bodyline series is the only cricketing series that filmmakers thought of making a film on and thus we had a mini-series in the year 1984.

Jardine quit as the English skipper before the 1934 Ashes and bid adieu to the game at the age of 33.

Thankfully enough, cricket’s alma mater Marleborne Cricket Board charted out rules relating to short-pitched bowling in 1934 that tilted the game more into the batsmen’s favour.

The Ashes starts on July 7 at Cardiff with Ricky Ponting’s Australians taking on Andrew Strauss’ Englishmen. Let the games begin!