début against West Indies, selection for the forthcoming winter tour to Australia was seen as a certainty.
Australia’s ageing post-war team had broken up in 1926 and England would be facing an inexperienced side led by Jack Ryder. There is no doubt Jardine’s first tour of Australia was a success. He began with three consecutive centuries. But already the Australian crowds had begun barracking him for slow scoring and less than agile fielding. Nevertheless, Donald Bradman was full of praise, calling Jardine’s third century one of the finest exhibitions of stroke play he had witnessed. The Australian crowds, however, took an active dislike to, of all things, Jardine’s choice of headwear.
Oxford University traditionally awarded a Harlequin cap to those who played good cricket. Former Oxford and Cambridge men often wore these caps while batting, in England at least, but it was less usual to wear them while fielding, and, when combined with Jardine’s aloof, angular and unresponsive manner, it inflamed the essentially decent but egalitarian nature of the Australian crowd, whose mood descended from good-natured barracking to outright hostility and abuse. Journalist and Test cricketer Jack Fingleton, who would have an important but disputed role during the Bodyline series, would say afterwards that Jardine had ample opportunity to win over the Australian crowds by the simple gestures of a self-deprecating smile and the odd joke at his own expense. The crowd was knowledgeable and had little doubt about Jardine’s capability as a batsman, but Australians like their sportsmen to be human and free of condescension – characteristics far from being evident in Jardine’s manner and bearing.
Jardine’s good form with the bat continued and his resolute crease-occupying focus played a vital role as England secured victories in the first two Tests. In the Third Test England were left with the difficult task of scoring 332 runs to win on a rain-damaged wicket. In one of their most famous partnerships, Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe put on 105. Hobbs had sent a message to the dressing room saying Jardine should be the next man in even though he was due to bat lower down the order. When Hobbs was dismissed Jardine came in and, despite finding batting extremely difficult, saw out the remainder of the day. England went on to take an unlikely win and many commentators said that only Jardine could have coped with the difficult conditions.
In Tasmania Jardine posted his highest first-class score of 214. England won the Fourth Test, Jardine and Hammond putting on the then highest third-wicket partnership in Test history of 262.
Australia won the final Test in Melbourne during which Jardine was used, unsuccessfully, as an opener replacing the injured Sutcliffe. After Jardine had completed his second innings (out for a first-ball duck), he immediately crossed Australia to catch a boat to India for a holiday. This was the era of timeless Tests, and although this was the fifth day, there remained three days of play. Whether his departure was planned or his tolerance of Australia and Australians had finally reached breaking point remains unclear to this day. Nevertheless, the mutual antipathy had been firmly established and would only grow over the next four years, culminating in the events of the 1932–3 series.
The Ashes series of 1928–9 also saw the Test début of a player who would go on to rewrite the record books, find cricketing immortality and unintentionally ensure that forever after Douglas Jardine would be remembered as an unconscionable villain and would-be destroyer of the great game.
When Donald Bradman was two and half years old, his parents moved the family 260 km east from his birthplace, Cootamundra, New South Wales, to the small town of Bowral, where as a schoolboy he would spend countless hours hitting a golf ball with a cricket stump against the curved wall of a water tank, learning to anticipate its unpredictable rebound. By the age of 12 he had scored his first century and at 13 he stepped into the local Bowral team captained by his uncle when they were a player short, scoring 37 and 29 not out in his two innings. He would become a regular for the side, making prodigious scores in local competitions. Bradman’s meteoric rise to the heights of the game was under way.
By 1926, an ageing Australian national side was in decline and after England had won the Ashes in the summer, a number of Australia’s players retired. Bradman’s prolific scoring for Bowral had come to the attention of the New South Wales Cricket Association, who were eager to find new talent. Invited to a practice session in Sydney, Bradman was chosen for the Country Week tournament, where his performances were good enough for an invitation to play grade cricket for St George in Sydney during the 1926–7 season. The following season, at the age of 19, Bradman made his first-class début for NSW, replacing the unfit Archie Jackson at the Adelaide Oval and scoring a century.
In 1928 England would be visiting Australia to defend the Ashes. Against England in early touring matches Bradman scored 87 and 132, both not out, and was picked for the First Test at Brisbane. As is the usual way of things, Euripides had it right when he said, ‘Those whom God wishes to destroy, He first makes mad.’ In only his tenth first-class match, Bradman’s Test début was a salutary lesson as Australia collapsed to 66 all out in their second innings, suffering a defeat by 675 runs – a record defeat that still stands today. Bradman was dropped for the Second Test.
Recalled for Melbourne, he scored 112 in the second innings, becoming the youngest player at the time to make a Test century. By the end of the season Bradman had amassed 1,690 first-class runs, averaging 93.88, and scored his first multiple century in Sheffield Shield cricket (340 not out against Victoria). The following year he would set a new world record for first-class cricket by scoring 452 not out against Queensland at the SCG. The gods of cricket had now changed their minds, shining brightly on their young protégé – and would do so for the next twenty years.
England were favourites to retain the Ashes in 1930, but the true measure of Bradman’s genius was yet to register with England’s supporters. He scored 236 at Worcester in the opening match and by the end of May had scored 1,000 first-class runs, the first Australian to achieve this feat. He scored a century in the First Test, but Australia lost the game. Then came the Second Test at Lord’s. Bradman’s contribution of 254 to a first-innings total of 729 ensured a series-levelling win for Australia.
For England things would only get worse as the Third Test at Leeds got under way on a hot day in July. On the first day Bradman scored a century before lunch. He added a second between lunch and tea, and was 309 not out at the close. He remains the only Test player in history to score 300 in a single day. His eventual tally of 334 set another world record. Poor weather saved England’s blushes and the match was drawn. The Fourth Test was also a weather-affected draw.
The Fifth and final deciding Test would be played at the Oval. The weather still had its part to play as England posted a first-innings score of 405, taking three rain-interrupted days to get there. Bradman, batting in his customary number three position, added another double century, reaching 232 before being caught behind the stumps by George Duckworth off Harold Larwood. Bradman and Bill Ponsford (110) ensured that Australia had secured a 290-run lead.
However, the conditions and Larwood’s fast, short-pitched bowling on a lively rain-affected pitch and Bradman’s apparent difficulties were what caught the eye of certain interested spectators. A number of players and journalists thought they detected a distinct unease in Bradman as he struggled with fast, rising deliveries. Nothing could be done with this information now as England were soundly beaten by an innings and surrendered the Ashes.
It was the start of the modern age and Bradman’s innings had been caught on moving film. England would have a chance to regain the Ashes over the winter of 1932–3 but to do that they would have to find a way to conquer the greatest batsman the world had ever seen. Maybe the answer lay in the grainy black and white footage?
The story goes that Jardine, on seeing the film, cried out, ‘I’ve got it! He’s yellow!’ Percy Fender was also in receipt of letters from Australia that described how Australian batsmen were increasingly moving across their stumps towards the off in order to play the ball away to leg. Once the MCC had appointed Jardine
