jardine
Time to Right History’s Wrongs
an article by Big Harvey
Quite a few commentators have recently voiced opinions that the balance between bat and ball in modern cricket has swung too far in favour of the batting side. Certainly, there seem to be a lot of runs about nowadays, both in Test and one-day cricket. Case in point is the amazing record-breaking South Africa v Australia One Day International earlier this year (2006) in Johannesburg. Australia made 434-4, with SA responding with an unbelievable 438-9 with a ball to spare, to beat the world record Australia had just smashed in their innings! Of course, the latter game was played on the flattest of flat tracks, and it’s to be hoped for the bowlers’ sakes that pitches such as the one at the Wanderers that day, with nothing whatsoever to offer the bowler, don’t become the norm.
My personal opinion is that the current period we’re going through is actually something of a golden age in world cricket. Every major Test team (i.e. everyone apart from Zimbabwe and Bangladesh) has at least one genuinely great player, who would have been considered a great player in any era. Even if one-day cricket has tended to become a bit dull and formulaic with the ICC trying too many silly gimmicks, there have been some truly great Test matches played in the last few years. As an England fan, it’s with some reluctance that I have to concede that a great deal of the credit for the massive revitalisation of Test cricket lies with Steve Waugh’s Australian team, with players like Adam Gilchrist, who used the swing in favour of the batsman to go on the attack, and significantly increase the rate at which runs are scored. Other teams have subsequently taken up the challenge by increasing their own run rates. The result has been some truly great contests, in conditions which twenty or thirty years ago would have resulted in the tamest of tame draws.
I hope that this tendency towards attacking play continues, and as long as it does, I see no need to change anything much. However, there is one rule I would like to see changed, and in fact abolished. That rule is the ridiculous restriction placed on the number of fielders allowed to be placed behind square on the leg side.
This rule was introduced in the wake of the political fall-out following England’s magnificent victory under the leadership of the great Douglas Jardine in the 1932-33 Ashes series.
There are some people who genuinely believe that England’s superb 4-1 victory was achieved because of an intimidatory style of bowling christened ‘Bodyline’ by sections of the Australian press. According to this simplistic and thoroughly distorted view, England’s fast bowlers, under instructions from the ‘ruthless’ Jardine, battered Australia’s batsmen into submission by bowling at the batsman’s body rather than the stumps.
In the packed stadia, the always-partisan Australian crowds, whipped up by the Australian media, voiced their contempt at England’s supposed tactics, and threatened to riot every time an Australian batsman was hit. Given that England had a fine set of pace men in the form of Harold Larwood, Bill Voce, and Gubby Allen, this happened quite often, just as batsmen get hit today. The difference of course was that in those days batsmen didn’t have helmets, arm guards, or many of the other items of protective clothing batsmen wear today.
The other difference, according to the Australian Board of Control, was England’s ‘unsportsmanlike’ use of leg-theory bowling. Leg-theory bowling was then, and still is perfectly legal, although not something that’s used much nowadays, due to a combination of establishment disapproval, and the rule change I mentioned earlier, which limits the number of fielders behind square on the leg side. Leg-theory involves bowling on or just outside leg stump, employing leg slips, backward short legs, etc. instead of a conventional slip cordon.
At that time, however, it was a fairly well-established part of the game, both in England and Australia. Australia themselves, in fact, a few years previously actually had a specialist leg-theory bowler, in the form of Warwick Armstrong. He played no fewer than 50 Tests for them, in an era when less Test cricket was played than today. Pelham Warner, who captained England’s 1903-04 Ashes winning side, described an encounter with Armstrong’s bowling in a tour match against Victoria at the MCG in 1903:
“Armstrong bowled wonderfully well. His leg break, it is true, is much more leg than break, but he dropped the ball […] just outside the leg stump, and with eight men on the on-side it was difficult to score from him.”
No complaints in other words from the English captain about Australian use of leg-theory!
Admittedly, Armstrong was a slow bowler, but there were certainly quicker bowlers using it worldwide before the 1932-33 tour. One such bowler was another Australian, Ted McDonald. McDonald was seriously quick by the standards of the day, and would have played more than the 11 Tests he did for Australia if he hadn’t decided to settle as a pro in England, where he qualified to play for Lancashire. To give some idea of how quick he was, in 1921, he took two Test wickets by breaking the batsman’s bat! England’s Andy Ducat’s bat broke sending a splinter onto the bail, dislodging it, with the ball dollying to slip, (it was recorded officially as caught), and South African opener Billy Zulch had his bat smashed by a ferocious McDonald delivery, fragments of the bat dislodging the bails for a hit wicket dismissal. McDonald, in partnership with Jack Gregory, on Australia’s 1921 tour of England inflicted many a painful blow on English batsmen, too. Bowlers had become faster, and injuries at the hands of fast bowlers had become an inevitable part of the game.
I was unable to find any record of McDonald actually using leg theory in the Test matches he played (would such records exist?), but he definitely did use it at times as a variation in first class matches. One example was the Roses match at Old Trafford in 1927, where he bowled to a 4-man leg trap with no slips.
These are just two of countless examples of leg-theory bowling being used in the years before England’s 1932-33 Ashes victory. I chose Australian players simply to illustrate the hypocrisy of the Australian Board in its handling of the so-called ‘Bodyline’ issue. Nobody in the past had made any serious criticism of leg-theory, other than (usually in the case of slow bowlers) that it could sometimes be a bit boring. On the contrary, Lebrun Constantine, father of Leary, reportedly described facing Trinidad fast bowler, George John, (who once gave the 1911 MCC tourists a particularly fearsome dose of his trademark leg-theory) as “very exciting!” Lots of batsmen didn’t like it, but how many bowlers or captains want to give batsmen the kind of bowling that they like?
Now suddenly, (because the Australians were taking a thrashing?), leg-theory bowling was considered ‘unsportsmanlike’, The Australian Board’s reaction, although hypocritical, was understandable. Hysterical Australian crowds, whipped up as they were by the sensationalist media, were baying for English blood, and the pressure on the Board from media and public alike to take action was immense. No matter that the style of bowling that they were complaining about was only ever used in short spells as a variation. No matter either that the two serious injuries suffered by Australian batsmen in the series, those of Woodfull and Oldfield were sustained while a conventional field was in place, rather than the leg-theory (or ‘Bodyline’) field placing that the Australian Board was seeking to demonise.
If the Australian Board’s reaction was excessive and inflammatory, however, some of the MCC’s actions in the aftermath of the storm were downright shameful. In those days, the MCC made the laws of cricket, and obviously certain concessions would have to be made if peace was to be restored. Politicians from both countries had become involved though, and as a result the MCC had more than just the best interests of cricket to consider. These were still the days of the British Empire, and cricket was regarded by the establishment as an important symbol of this. Anglo-Australian relations were at stake too, and in the view of the British establishment, those relations had to be protected at all costs.
It is against this backdrop that the 1935 rule changes were introduced. Until 1935, (officially 1937, but from 1935 in England), a batsman could not be given out LBW to a ball that pitched outside off stump. This was one rule change that was long overdue, since it ended the negative practice of batsmen kicking away anything pitching outside off-stump. Legislation against persistent intimidatory bowling was also fair enough.
Unfortunately, the MCC and cricket authorities in general continued to stigmatise leg theory, and eventually the lawmakers were to go even further, restricting the number of fielders allowed behind square on the leg side.
The latter rule change has all but robbed the game of the art of leg-theory. Generations of cricket fans have been denied of the chance to witness this facet of the game. Generations of innovative captains and their bowlers have effectively been denied the use of it. Nasser Hussain (a very Jardinesque captain) did use it in a limited and purely defensive role during England’s 2001-2 tour of India, and was roundly and very unfairly lambasted for doing so in the Indian press.
Much more disgracefully, the MCC asked Harold Larwood, the leading exponent of leg-theory on the 1932-33 Ashes tour to apologise for his actions in helping to bring home the Ashes. By giving credence in this way to those who branded leg theory bowling as ‘unsportsmanlike,’ the MCC cheapened England’s Ashes victory in the eyes of too much of the cricketing world, and besmirched the reputations of the brilliant, dynamic England captain Douglas Jardine, as well as Voce, and Larwood himself. Larwood quite rightly stuck to his principles, refused to sign the apology that had been prepared for him, and paid dearly by never again playing for England.
When Harold Larwood’s solicitor described his client as having been “sacrificed on the altar of imperialism,” he hit the nail on the head. He might also have used the same words with reference to the art of leg-theory.
It’s high time these wrongs were righted:
Ø The damaged cricketing reputations of Jardine, Larwood, Voce, and the rest of England’s 1932-33 Ashes heroes must be fully restored.
Ø The 1932-33 Ashes series must be acknowledged and celebrated as one of the greatest of all time, and the one which more than any other marked the birth of the modern game (especially modern bowling and modern captaincy) as we know it.
Ø England’s glorious victory must be cleansed of the smears placed on it by the Australian Board of Control and the MCC, and celebrated by all England fans. The truth of the matter is that England out-batted, out-bowled, out-thought, out-fielded, and out-captained their opponents, and we should look back on England’s victory with pride, not shame.
Ø Leg-theory must be restored to its rightful place as a tactic to be called upon when circumstances dictate, as an additional weapon for the fielding side, and an extra test for the batsman. This can be achieved by removing the restriction on the number of fielders permitted behind square on the leg side, and by removing once and for all the irrational stigma attached to leg-theory resulting from the political fall-out following the 1932-33 series.
Ø Finally, Australian supporters must be made to stop whining about ‘Bodyline’.
OK, I am forced to admit that the last of these measures might be a little bit hard to achieve!