Cricket · 1933 · Australia
The Bodyline Series
England's captain builds a deliberately intimidatory fast-bowling tactic around stopping Don Bradman, and comes close to causing a diplomatic incident.
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 it, and England's captain Douglas Jardine spent the time before the sides met again in Australia in 1932-33 working out what could be done about him.
What he arrived at, with the 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 fending shot. It was called 'Bodyline'. Several Australian batsmen were struck and injured, the Australian board formally accused England of unsportsmanlike conduct, and the two countries' governments ended up exchanging cables about a cricket tour.
England won the series 4-1, and Bradman's average, while still far ahead of anyone else's, fell well short of his previous form. The laws were changed afterwards to limit how many fielders may stand behind square on the leg side, which is what a tactic has to do to get itself legislated against.
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