not play such a strong part in that country’s everyday life. However, an England cricket tour to Zimbabwe in 2003 did allow a precious opportunity for Western journalists – banned at the time by the regime – including myself to enter the country. Once inside, we were able to report on life within the country, from the consequences of rampant inflation to the witnessing of farms being burned to the ground.
It might be everyone’s ideal to keep sport and politics as far apart as possible, but not only is that naive, but it also denies sport the opportunity to play its part in civilizing society and improving lives. A number of great South African cricketers had their international careers ruined by the Gleneagles Agreement, and have every reason to be bitter towards the politicians who drove their own country into sporting isolation. Mike Procter, as fine an all-rounder as there has ever been, was restricted to just seven Tests before the curtain came down. ‘What’s one life,’ he asked me, ‘compared to the millions who were liberated?’
Determined men will always push the boundaries until their actions expose a frailty in a law, and only then will that loophole be closed. It had been tried in the county game, but without the outright hostility and accuracy of Larwood or the volatile atmosphere of a seething cauldron of a Test arena. And we should remember that an Ashes series was the only series that really mattered to the cricket-watching public in the 1930s. Bowling short with as many men as you wanted on the leg side was a legitimate tactic, but not what cricket was meant to be, or the way cricket should be played. It would take Bodyline for people to see this, and it caused the Laws of the game to be changed to prevent it from ever happening again – quite rightly. Did it work as a tactic against Bradman? England won the series, so the argument goes that it did. Bradman always claimed that it didn’t.
The intimidatory bowling of the West Indies in the 1980s was as close to modern bodyline as you can get: the ball whistling past your head at more than ninety miles per hour was extremely nasty. I was a tail-end batsman at the time and did not relish getting out there. Even the top players were unnerved and saw it as a considerable challenge to face up to these great bowlers. But you never heard them complain about it.
The Bodyline story had all the right ingredients: a big, bad fast bowler; a brilliant batsman capable of dominating the series; the unbending patrician figure of Jardine as captain; and a hostile crowd all too ready to find fault with the tourists. Running through the game is the ‘spirit’ of cricket, something that is considered so central to the wellbeing and future of the game that it is articulated in the preamble to the Laws of Cricket under the heading ‘Responsibility of Captains’: ‘The captains are responsible at all times for ensuring that play is conducted within the Spirit of the Game as well as within the Laws.’ This is what holds the game together and I have no doubt Jardine fell short in this regard.
What followed was also a failure of communication, through the purblind inherent conservatism of the MCC and the rash injured pride leading to the intemperate complaints of the Australians. I have always thought the Australians took the wrong initiative in complaining so much.
Cricket’s lawmakers are still getting it wrong: today we have the absurdity of banning runners. It will only take a Test match with twenty thousand in the ground and a team nine down needing ten runs to win. The last batsman has a dodgy hamstring and can’t get out to bat so the game abruptly finishes. Is that what it will take for the ICC to realize what a daft rule they’ve brought in?
Body-Line
The last thing I want to do at the close of my career is to revive unpleasant memories. However, I would be failing in my duty if I did not record my impressions of something which very nearly brought about a cessation of Test cricket between England and Australia, especially as I was one of the central figures.
Jardine, who captained England in that series, wrote a book defending his theory. So did Larwood. The defence could have impressed the jury not at all, for body-line is now outlawed.
Of paramount importance is the fact that body-line can no longer be bowled because the M.C.C. has passed a law which has the effect of prohibiting it. I make this point very strongly because even today, in parts of England, people think Australia stopped it.
The M.C.C. at first were reluctant to believe the reports emanating from Australia as to the nature of the bowling, called “body-line”. They very rightly wanted evidence, and one understands their reluctance to act without it.
Having obtained the evidence they did not hesitate.
Now what exactly was body-line bowling? It was really short-pitched fast bowling directed towards the batsman’s body with a supporting leg-side field.
In his book, Anti-Body-line, Alan Kippax defines it fairly well in setting out the following objections to that type of bowling:—
1 That a considerable proportion of the deliveries were directed straight at the batsman’s body.
2 That many of these deliveries were deliberately pitched short enough to make them fly as high as the batsman’s shoulders and head.
3 That an intensive leg-side field was placed, including four and sometimes five men in the short-leg positions, supported by two (occasionally one) in the deep field at long-leg.
Kippax was an Australian batsman, so perhaps it would be more convincing to quote the definition given by an English batsman. This is how Wally Hammond defined it:—
1 Delivered by a speed merchant.
2 Bumped so as to fly high above the wicket.
3 Delivered straight at the batsman.
4 Bowled with a leg-side field of 6 to 8 men.
Of course the protagonists of body-line always claimed that it was leg theory—an entirely fallacious claim.
Warwick Armstrong, Fred Root and others bowled leg theory. Nobody was in the slightest danger therefrom.
With body-line it was different. The risk of actual physical danger to the batsman became his chief consideration.
In order that we may get things in their proper perspective, I feel impelled to quote the remarks of Sir Pelham Warner, who, so far as I know, was the first man to protest in writing against body-line bowling, though at that time the term “body-line” had not been coined.
Writing in the London Morning Post of August 22, 1932, of a match between Yorkshire and Surrey at The Oval, he said, “Bowes must alter his tactics. Bowes bowled with five men on the on-side and sent down several very short-pitched balls which repeatedly bounced head-high and more. Now that is not bowling; indeed it is not cricket; and if all the fast bowlers were to adopt his methods M.C.C. would be compelled to step in and penalise the bowler who bowled the ball less than half-way up the pitch.”
So Bill Bowes was evidently the first man to use this form of attack in England, and at once it was denounced. It was not leg theory.
Where did body-line originate?
