Cricket: A Modern Anthology. Jonathan Agnew

would consent, but with great reluctance.

      A week later the rattled and disunited Board of Control sent its reply. The truth came to them belatedly, rather like the descending apple that struck Newton. The Board realized that the MCC’s opinion was prejudiced by the fact that it hadn’t seen ‘the actual play’. It could easily shelter behind the irrefutable point that Bodyline did not contravene cricket’s sacred laws; any tawny-coloured copy of Wisden proved that too.

      The Board finally understood that it needed to act positively rather than negatively. The Australians appointed a committee to report on how Bodyline bowling could be scrubbed cleanly out of the game and added, rather sheepishly, that ‘we do not consider it necessary to cancel the remainder of the programme’. For one thing, it would have been financial insanity to have done so. As Larwood made clear: ‘Bodyline drew back the crowds.’ The Australians did reiterate that Bodyline was ‘opposed to the spirit of cricket’ – another euphemistic dig at England’s supposed lack of sportsmanship – and said that it had become ‘unnecessarily dangerous to the players’. The Board missed a trick. It ought to have withdrawn the allegation of ‘unsportsmanlike’ behaviour, instead of sharpening it. On 2 February, the MCC was able to bite them again – albeit very politely – when it asked: ‘May we accept … that the good sportsmanship of our team is not in question?’ Unless it was prepared for the sight of the England players packing their bags and walking up the gangplank on the next boat home, the Board had no option but to concede that Bodyline hadn’t been unsporting after all. ‘We do not regard the sportsmanship of your team to be in question,’ its next cable assured the MCC. It had just performed a Tour de France of back-pedalling.

      The accusation of unsportsmanlike play – the worst possible insult because it implied cheating – couldn’t be allowed to stand. To have been boneheaded enough to level it in the first place was one thing. To repeat it was more than a slur; it was like the white glove across the face that summoned the recipient to a duel to protect his honour and reputation. The MCC committee was cricket’s high society: titled, ennobled through birthright or distinction, mostly educated at Eton or Harrow and Oxbridge, and politically Conservative. If the MCC committee had been a building, then Gaudi would have built it and given it a modernist twist. It was a grand, elaborate, complex-looking construction which included three Viscounts, one Duke, two Earls, four Lords and three Knights. The President was Viscount Lewisham, a former Tory MP and previously Lord Great Chamberlain of England. His father and grandfather were both past Presidents of the MCC; Lord Hawke dominated English and particularly Yorkshire cricket for half a century and served as President during the First World War; Viscount Bridgeman had been Home Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty during the 1920s; Sir Stanley Jackson was, like Hawke, a distinguished former Yorkshire cricketer – more than 10,000 runs and 500 wickets – as well as an MP, Chairman of the Conservative Party and Governor of Bengal. And so it went on …

      This aristocracy, the Debrett’s of cricket, saw itself as the infallible arbiter of what was and was not cricket. It upheld the values of sporting prowess taught on the lush playing fields of the public schools and had its own clear-eyed view of the proper and correct way to ‘play up and play the game’. Even if it hadn’t, the players, seething against the term ‘unsportsmanlike’, would have rebelled unless the Board withdrew its charge against them. As Larwood recalled: ‘We felt we were in a false position in having to take the field with the stigma of the Board’s term still on us.’ Larwood remembered Jardine’s anxiety both before and after the cables began. The Australian press whipped up several stories about dissent and squabbling among the England camp, dramatically described as ‘being at war with itself’. Maurice Tate was said to have flung beer over Jardine, which Larwood said was untrue. There was supposed to be open hostility towards Jardine’s disciplinarian approach, which was only partly true. As Larwood made clear, any ‘grievances … were not nearly as serious as was made out’ and stemmed not from Bodyline but from the frustration of players unable to force a way into the team. ‘There were players who were unhappy,’ he said, ‘but it was because they couldn’t get into the Tests. Australia’s an awfully long way to go if you don’t get a game.’

      At the end of the fifth day of the Adelaide Test, Jardine called a meeting in a private room of the team hotel. There were only two points on the agenda. Should Bodyline/leg theory be abandoned? Should Jardine continue as captain? When Warner was the first to speak, [bowler] Tommy Mitchell told him to sit down and shut up: ‘It’s got nowt to do with you,’ he said. Everyone, however, finally had a say. The players liked the direction and purpose Jardine brought to the series, and the thought of winning the Ashes too. Jardine won his vote of confidence unanimously: ‘a vote for England’ is how Larwood put it. Bodyline would stay. For him, the ends justified the means. His captain’s stiff-upper-lip, win-at-any-cost, grind-the-bastards-down attitude convinced Larwood and others that the Ashes could only be won with Jardine. He was as different as it is possible to be in approach and temperament from the circumspect Woodfull. ‘Jardine might have been unpopular with a few of the players,’ said Larwood, ‘but everybody respected and admired him and many of us liked him.’ Asked to define his qualities, Larwood replied simply: ‘He was ruthless.’

      England made 412 in their second innings and smartly removed the Australians – with Oldfield ‘absent hurt’ on the scorecard – for 193. In a win by 338 runs, Larwood finished with match figures of seven for 126. ‘I was quick there,’ he said. ‘People just forget it because of what else happened.’

      From Harold Larwood, 2009

THE BOWLING CONTROVERSY

       Text of the cables

      During the tour of the M.C.C. team in Australia in 1932–33, exception was taken in that country to the methods adopted by certain of the visiting bowlers, and long correspondence by cable between the M.C.C. and the Australian Board of Control followed. Below will be found, in chronological order, the text of these cables, together with—in proper sequence—a short report of meetings bearing upon the subject.

       From Australian Board of Control to M.C.C., Jan. 18, 1933.

      “Body-line bowling has assumed such proportions as to menace the best interests of the game, making protection of the body by the batsmen the main consideration.

      “This is causing intensely bitter feeling between the players as well as injury. In our opinion it is unsportsmanlike.

      “Unless stopped at once it is likely to upset the friendly relations existing between Australia and England.”

       From M.C.C. to Australian Board of Control, Jan. 23, 1933.

      “We, Marylebone Cricket Club, deplore your cable. We deprecate your opinion that there has been unsportsmanlike play. We have fullest confidence in captain, team and managers and are convinced that they would do nothing to infringe either the Laws of Cricket or the spirit of the game. We have no evidence that our confidence has been misplaced. Much as we regret accidents to Woodfull and Oldfield, we understand that in neither case was the bowler to blame. If the Australian Board of Control wish to propose a new Law or Rule, it shall receive our careful consideration in due course.

      “We hope the situation is not now as serious as your cable would seem to indicate, but if it is such as to jeopardize the good relations between English and Australian cricketers and you consider it desirable to cancel remainder of programme we would consent, but with great reluctance.”

       From Australian Board of Control to M.C.C., Jan. 30, 1933.

      “We, Australian Board of Control, appreciate your difficulty in dealing with the matter raised in our cable without having seen the actual play. We unanimously regard body-line bowling, as adopted in some of the games in the present tour, as being opposed to the spirit of cricket, and unnecessarily dangerous to the players.