The Larger Geopolitical Implications of this Ashes tour
It was the Winter of 1932-33 (summer in Australia) and the England team went on an Ashes tour. However, it was 1932 and there were other profound events going on around the world, which made this tour particularly important for both England and Australia.Australia was and still is a Commonwealth Dominion - a “country” that is allowed to have its own Westminister style of Parliament and Prime Minister, even its own armed services but they all pledge allegiance to the British monarch. This meant that the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force could, as were other dominions’ armed forces, be mobilized at any time to supplement the British armed services, just as they had in the Boer Wars and the First World War. Other Dominions were Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. This, and the prospect of raising armies from colonial holdings in India, Malaya, Eastern Africa, the Caribbean and he Middle East meant that Britain could field quite the formidable military against its biggest concerns at that time - Germany, Imperial Japan and Stalinist Russia. And things weren’t looking well in that aspect. Germany was looking to appoint Hitler as Chancellor, rearm and annex territory, including reclaiming Alsace and Lorraine from France. Soviet Russia was on the other hand threatening Britain’s colonial holdings in Asia, as was Imperial Japan. Britain needed the ability to raise that formidable military more than ever. Its other WW1 allies would probably not be of much help. Italy under Mussolini’s rule had switched back to being Germany aligned, France was a lot more war weary and eager for peace that Britain was, and the USA was deep in the throes of isolationism, with Japan being their only concern.
And Jardine’s zeal to win a test cricket tournament at any cost could have seriously complicated matters further for Britain.
Dominance in the Ashes was seen as a point of national pride in Australia at that time. The Great Depression had affected it, being so closely tied to the British Crown and during this period of malaise, cricket victories and Don Bradman were pretty much the only escape the average Australian had. There were even some murmurs and rumbling about Australia severing itself completely from the Crown and becoming a republic - thereby ensuring it wouldn’t automatically get dragged into Britain’s wars. If the Brits had taken back the Ashes with fair play, nothing would have come of it. But using a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to neuter Bradman’s ability and then rubbishing the fans’ complaints about that tactic as just being sore losers would have reinforced an image Australians already had of Britons being snooty aristocrats who just wanted to lord over everyone else and saw themselves as above the concerns of the common Aussie. And the economic upheavals caused by the Great Depression just might have given republicanism a firm enough footing to take hold and succeed in seceding from the Empire.
And this would have caused catastrophic ripples. If Australia left, New Zealand would have surely followed. In South Africa, anti-British sentiment had been high among the Afrikaner populace ever since the Boer Wars, with only the statesmanship of the relatively moderate Jan Smutts being the only thing keeping that colony in British hands. However with Australia and New Zealand leaving, enough pressure could have been brought to topple Smutts, secede from the Crown and turn South Africa into a Nazi sympathetic country - and a strategically vital springboard for Hitler to project power into the oil rich Middle East. Seeing the writing on the wall, Canada could also have severed ties and joined the United States in isolationism. Seeing white dominated Dominions collapsing would have been a major shot in the arm for the Indian independence movement, causing Britain to potentially lose that region too. This very well could have fermented anti-colonial uprisings in Africa, Malaya, the Caribbean etc. Britain could have ended up well and truly alone against the Nazi or Soviet threat.
And this was why Jardine was never allowed to play for England again after this Ashes victory.
The mechanics - why Bodyline worked and why it is so dangerous
In a cricket field, the field is split into two halves. The “off side” is the right side of the field, from the perspective of the batsman. Like a batter in baseball or a gridiron football quarterback preparing to throw, he can see the right side of the field quite well, but the “leg side” or left side of the field is behind him, and is therefore his “blind side”. A ball that is pitched long (i.e. closer to the batsman) can usually be played by simply blocking it with the bat right where it bounces, or driving it where it bounces. That ball will harmlessly roll on the grass. Also, since the bowler has a small “window” of deliverable line, it is easy to judge where a pitched up ball might bounce, and try to drive there. A ball pitched short ie a few feet in front of the batsman will bounce and come to him at around stomach to chest height, with specific deliveries called “bouncers” whizzing past the batman a face height. Striking these balls will cause them to momentarily sail through the air, increasing the chance of a fielder catching it.
A bouncer pitched on the off side is usually avoided by swaying out of its way. One that is pitched on the leg side might end up being called “wide”. A batsman can also try to take a step back, raise his bat and defensively block the bouncer, hitting it down to the ground in front. Another tactic is to “hook” ie hit the bouncer up into the air towards the leg side in the hope that it sails into the gap between fielders, or sails above them to reach the boundary. Since bouncers are bowled at a very high pace, a batsman needs extremely quick reflexes to be able to time the hook shot so that the ball doesn’t fly right into the arms of a fielder. Very few batsmen are capable of the skill to play the hook shot.
Bodyline attempted to make playing the hook shot impossible by two means. First, the leg side of the field was packed with fielders with only a token few left on the off side. Second, the ball was pitched exactly in the “line of the body”, thereby ensuring that the batsman couldn’t easily duck under it or sway away from it. The length of the ball was such that the ball wouldn’t arrive at chin height and sail past, instead it will strike the batsman on his chest. This meant that the batsman either had to play the hook shot and get caught, play a defensive block and get caught by close in fielders, or not play a shot and get hit. Harold Larwood was accurate enough to pitch the ball at a short length where even taking a few steps back to get out of its way would cause the delivery to hit the stumps, clean bowling the batsman. This placed the batsman in a Sadistic Choice of sorts - get injured, or get out.
Nowadays although bowling in the “line of the body” is not banned, packing the leg side with fielders is. A bowling side cannot have more than five fielders on the leg side, thereby allowing the batsman to strike the ball into an unguarded area to preserve his wicket and avoid being hit. Also, nowadays batsmen wear a lot more protective equipment to mitigate injury even if struck.
