Cricket · 1933 · Australia
The Bodyline Series
England's captain devises a deliberately intimidatory fast-bowling tactic aimed squarely at Don Bradman, a strategy so controversial it nearly caused a diplomatic rupture between Australia and Britain.
England won the series 4-1
Result
139.14
Bradman's series average, 1930
56.57
Bradman's series average, 1932-33
Don Bradman had destroyed England's bowling in the 1930 Ashes series, averaging an almost unheard-of 139.14 across the series, a level of dominance England's captain Douglas Jardine resolved to find a way to counter before the teams met again in Australia in 1932-33.
Jardine's solution, developed with fast bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, was to bowl short-pitched deliveries aimed directly at the batsman's body with a packed leg-side field waiting for the defensive shot, a tactic that became known as 'Bodyline'. Several Australian batsmen were struck and injured, and the Australian board formally accused England of unsportsmanlike conduct, prompting a diplomatic exchange of cables between the countries' governments.
England won the series 4-1 and Bradman's average, while still far ahead of anyone else, fell well short of his previous form. The controversy led directly to changes in cricket's laws limiting the number of fielders permitted behind square on the leg side, and 'Bodyline' remains the most notorious tactical controversy in the sport's history, still studied as the moment cricket's unwritten codes of conduct were most severely tested.
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