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Just wanted to draw the attention of my cricket-loving chums to the fact that this is the 75th anniversary of THAT Ashes tour....
75 years ago tomorrow D G Bradman was bowled for nought, dragging a long-hop from Bowes onto his stumps.....
Silly boy! :tsk tsk:
BTW - D R Jardine was a Scotsman. :wink:
With two great Nottinghamshire fast-bowling heroes doing the damage (and causing a diplomatic incident!)
I worked at Trent Bridge as a lad, the tales they used to tell me about Harold Larwood were unreal. Groundstaff who'd been there many years told me they had to keep THREE complete sets of replacement stumps handy as he smashed so many when clean bowling people. They also reckoned that in the nets, Harold could hit a small pocket handkerchief on a length five times out of six - at full speed. When Harold was bowling, the Notts wicketkeeper was stationed nearer the boundary than the stumps.
Not a big man at 5ft 8ins but an immensely powerful one with the broad shoulders, chest and biceps of an ex-miner.
I actually met his partner, Bill Bowes one time. An absolute gent and a very tall and imposing man. His wicked left-handed deliveries whipping into the batsman's body were lethal and the ideal foil for Lol Larwood.
I've retired :agree:
Quote:
Originally Posted by stu in nottingham
Just finished reading Christopher Douglas's biography of Jardine - really enjoyed it.
Interesting that Jack Fingleton (who played in three of the five 'bodyline' Tests) seems to have harboured no lasting grudge against either Larwood or Jardine. Mind you, Fingleton despised Bradman, so I suppose he might have enjoyed watching the Don ducking for his life.... :devil:
I've seen a few TV interviews with Larwood over the years, and he always came across as a genuinely lovely man - your old-fashioned honest professional. In the book, CD records that when he was at his fastest the slips were set somewhere about 30 yards from the ropes, and even then they had a hard job seeing the ball coming to them. the mind boggles.
It's also interesting that according to Christopher Douglas, D R Jardine may well have got the idea from a match against South Australia the previous Ashes tour, where Vic Richardson had a fast bowler named Jack Scott bowl on or just outside leg-stump to a heavily-weighted leg-side field against Jardine himself. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the classic definition of bodyline? :cool2:
Vic Richardson. if my reading's correct, was one of the loudest whingers in 1932, and his grandsons the Chappells are whingeing about it still. :devil:
Well they called it 'leg-theory' but it became known as 'bodyline' in a derogative way. I have heard about the earlier incidences of similar bowling. It should also be remembered that McDonald and Gregory, the two Aussie fast bowlers had given the England team a pretty torrid time back in 1921 too. This was conveniently forgotten. I believe the Notts captain at the time, Arthur Carr was heavily implicated in the leg-theory plan though it was used used for Notts. It was specifically to stop the free-scoring Bradman, (which in the main it did by his hugely high standards).
In my view the only reason that this style of bowling became the issue it did was because Larwood was just so damned quick. The batsmen just couldn't play him. Voce was pretty dangerous too because his height and left-handed trajectory was bringing the ball into the batsmen's ribs from just short of a length. Like all fast bowlers, bowling in pairs and keeping up the pressure at both ends both physically and psychologically. Bowes was a decent bowler but nowhere near the pace of Larwood whilst the fourth fast bowler in the party, Gubby Allen, flat refused to have anything to do with it.
I think Harold was very badly done by concerning the England selectors afterwards. They insisted he apologised for his actions but Larwood refused and maintained he only carried out Jardine's orders. They didn;t stand by him at all. Conversely the Australian public never seemed to react badly to him. I think they saw him in a curious way as 'one of them' - a man who had a thirst to win and also a supreme talent to go with it. He retired to keep a little shop in Sydney ironically and lived happily there.
Here's a pic of Harold's statue which sits (rather incongruously) in Kirkby-in-Ashfield in North Notts. It's the nearest town to his Nuncargate home. I took a look at it close up a couple of times and it really captures him in full flight just about to pull the trigger. Excellent.
http://www.ashfield-dc.gov.uk/g_lib/cricket/statue3.jpg
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Originally Posted by stu in nottingham
Absolutely - Harold Larwood was the fastest bowler in the world at that time, and I suspect that when he was really flying he was completely unplayable even by DGB. Jardine himself could play against a leg-theory/bodyline field quite well, as I believe a number of the Aussie batsmen could.
The ironic thing is that if you look carefully at the film of poor old Woodfull getting thumped in the chest, you'll see that HL's bowling to an orthodox off-side field. IMO Woodfull also rather walks into it. It's exactly the sort of thing that happened regularly when Thompson and Lillee were terrorising batsmen on a regular basis when I was a teenager.
It was just typical of the sort of characters infesting Lords' in those days (it hasn't changed much since, IMHO) that they would treat HL the way they did. I saw a TV interview with him in 1982, and it was clear that he was still hurting over his treatment. Why they couldn't have just said, "OK, guys, we won fair and square by the rules (which they did) - but if you think the rules need changing for the good of the game, let's talk about it," instead of insinuatng that Jardine and Larwood had somehow done something shameful.
Mind - that said, I do agree that bowling leg-theory with someone as fast as HL (seriously, seriously fast) against batsmen without upper-body protection or helmets was over the line, but no more over than some of the sessions Lillee and Thompson bowled 40 years later. And no more against the 'spirit of the game' than that daisy-cutter Greg Chapppell told Trevor Chappell to bowl in that ODI again the Kiwis,,,,
Just a thought, though, Mike - I wonder how a fast bowler REALLY feels about the batsman at the moment he releases the really nasty short-pitched bouncer that's heading right for the batsman's nose? :cool2:
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Originally Posted by Doddie
In answer to that point I'd say that most fast bowlers feel like knocking a batsman's head off. I don't think it's applicable with Lol Larwood and 'Bodyline' though - his deliveries from that beautiful classic style were scudding and rearing up off a length not far from full. He was just that immensely quick that the stuff he was bowling, just fractionally short of a length was murderous to most batsmen.
The guys I used to talk to at Trent Bridge would often compare him to modern day fast bowlers for pace. They saw the great West Indian four-pronged attacks, Lindwall and Miller, Wes Hall, Lillee and Thomson et al but claimed that NONE of them were remotely close to Harold's pace. I believe them too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stu in nottingham
That's my impression, too, Stu. Harold Larwood seems to have been plenty good enough and fast enough to have caused Bradman and Co real problems without recourse to leg-theory/bodyline tactics. I'm not sure Jardine actually knew just how good a bowler he had in him.
When you consider that the England pace attack that series was Larwood, Voce, Allen and Bowes you MIGHT think that the four of them were up to the job?
I have a memory of a very elderly Gubby Allen being interviewed on TMS when Marshall and Big Bird were savaging England one summer around 1980. Marshall, Holding, Lillee and Thompson were mentioned, and Allen was absolutely adamant - Harold Larwood was faster than any of them, and better than any of them.
Special needs (Bradman the run-scoring machine) needed special measures (leg theory). Bradman still ended with a decent batting average in that series by the standards of other mortals. By his standards his scoring was heavily curtailed though.
Jardine was an interesting character I always thought. Very much an amateur in the days of 'gentlemen and players' I always thought he had the heart and soul of a professional, and played the game like one. (Incidentally I recall when I was at Trent Bridge in the seventies there was still a vestige of the separate gates that amateurs and professionals used to enter the field from).
Jardine was a tough cookie and a strongly principled man with courage to spare. The Australians gave him hell on and off the field in '32/3 but he stood up to all of it. Larwood had the utmost respect for his 'skipper'. His batting style was apparently stiff and lacked fluency, but his gritty defence and guts made up for those failings. At the crease he would eak out the runs in the manner of a pro looking for his contract next season rather than swing the bat in a cavalier, amateur style.
There used to be a saying in Nottinghamshire that the club would whistle down a mineshaft and another fast bowler would turn up. It's remarkable really because Trent Bridge wickets were always 'featherbeds' in those days - slow-playing batsmen's paradises that would tax the very best fast bowlers. It was always easier to slow the pace down and swing the ball early in the morning at Trent Bridge and use the dew from the River Trent in the morning to grab a wicket or two. There was never a great incentive to bowl very fast at Trent Bridge for those reasons. I guess that can be corroborated in the fact that Lol Larwood had quite a short career. What a career it was though.
Here's a little bit of info about the great fast bowler's background, Doddie:
http://www.ashfield-dc.gov.uk/ccm/na...ood-s-village/
'The Silent Killer'
'I'll tell you about that 'Silent Killer' nickname I gave him. I used to field at cover point and as Loll came up on that smooth, carpet-slipper run of his, and I moved in to the batsmen I used to listen hard - to find out what kind of delivery he was going to bowl. If I could hear his feet tip-tapping over the turf I knew he would be well within himself - he would still be quick, mind.
But when I couldn't hear him running up I used to look at the batsman and think: 'You're a split second away from trouble, son,' because I knew that Loll was coming in on his toes and he was going to let slip the fastest he'd got.'
Joe Hardstaff Jnr. - Notts. and England
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/sherwoodtimes/harold.htm
"Only one team was playing withing the spirit of the game. That's all I can say..."
A quote from Anil Kumble after the Second Test against Australia in Sydney. Nothing much changes. :cool2:
And Harbhajan Singh banned for 3 tests (appeal pending) for allegedly referring to Andrew Symonds as a monkey.:bitchy:Quote:
Originally Posted by Doddie
I think the appealing for Dravids wicket was shocking. I think the Aussies nearest to the batsmen would know that the ball was nowhere near the bat. Gilchrist especially, there is no way he should have appealed for that, he would have clearly saw ball hitting pad (well outside the line of offstump so not LBW either).
The Aussies and Indians don't like each other, that was apparant during the recent one day series in India. There was always going to be fireworks in the test series.:agree:
A bit of a trailblazer in that respect, having been born in India.Quote:
Originally Posted by Doddie
I remember the 1984 series, Bodyline, sadly unavailable as far as I know. Apart from a host of A Country Practise actors and actresses it featured one Hugo Weaving as Douglas Robert Jardine: later to find fame in the matrix and Lord of the Ring trilogies.
This England captain was born and bred Scottish.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/sports.../article/0071/
Bobby, there's a pile of Bodyline clips on YouTube. The links to the first 5 are below, couldn't be arsed doing them all !!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobby S
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufnwk1qVctk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDySF...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ2SO...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtHtE...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2EGa...eature=related
Leg-theory-tastic KP.
Thank you very much :agree:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobby S
Both DRJ's parents were Scots - days of the Raj and all that, old boy.... :wink:
The 'Bodyline' series was a bit of a disappointment, IIRC. It was made by one of the Murdoch companies, with a Aussie Republican agenda, and while I have no quarrel with the idea of the Aussies giving Betty Windsor the old heave-ho (roll on the day she has to ask nicely and get a visa on her passport to come to Edinburgh) it did rather detract from the series as a piece of cricketing historiography. Most biographers of DRJ are agreed that he was nothing like the arrogant pillock Weaving portrayed him as.
Another Aussie film of the period - "Gallipoli" - put the same strongly Anglophobe spin on the events surrounding the Lone Pine battle. It wasn't just the ANZACs who got thrown away at Gallipoli.
But in regard to bodyline and DRJ, I say it again - leg theory was well within the rules at the time, and what's the point of being a fast bowler if you can't rattle a rib-cage or two? :devil: