Over the ensuing six months, Jardine’s despised tactics not only threatened the future of Test cricket but even undermined the bonds of the British Empire.

The combatants and the eye-witnesses have all but gone, although Bill Brown, now in his 96th year, played for New South Wales against the MCC but did not play in a Bodyline Test.

Jardine devised a strategy of dangerously short-pitched bowling using his two fast bowlers, Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, to combat Don Bradman, Australia’s sporting hero of the depression-ravaged times.

‘The Don’ had been rewriting cricket’s record books since his Test debut in 1928 and when the Australians won the five-Test series 2-1 in England in 1930, Bradman amassed 974 runs at a batting average of 139.14, an aggregate record that stands to this day. Jardine’s theory of directing his bowlers to bowl at leg stump and make the ball rear into the batsman’s body became known as ‘Bodyline’. It was a tumultuous time for cricket and anti-English feelings soared. Australian captain Bill Woodfull was twice struck by bumpers and wicketkeeper Bert Oldfield edged a ferocious delivery from Larwood on to his temple, collapsed beside the pitch and was carried from the field unconscious.

Woodfull then told the English management: “There are two teams out there, and only one of them is playing cricket.” There were frantic political negotiations to save the tour and restore frayed diplomatic relations between Britain and Australia. England’s 4-1 series victory brought both opprobrium and praise for Jardine.
Bodyline curbed Bradman’s average to 56.57. He scored just a century in four Tests. Without the Bodyline series, Bradman would had a Test average of 104.76 instead of 99.94.

Larwood claimed a series-high 33 wickets at 19.51. But the 28-year-old never played for England again and later migrated to Sydney with his family and lived until his death in 1995, at the age of 90.

Jardine resigned as England captain before Australia’s 1934 Ashes tour and retired from first-class cricket aged 33. That same year, the MCC outlawed systematic bowling of fast and short-pitched balls at batsmen standing clear of their wicket.

Bradman died in Adelaide on February 25, 2001, aged 92, while Jardine died from lung cancer aged 57 in Switzerland in June 1958.
AFP