Australia v England 3rd Test

A tactic with a nickname

By the time England's touring party reached Adelaide Oval in January 1933, the rest of the series had already turned ugly. Douglas Jardine, England's captain, had built a plan specifically to deal with Donald Bradman, the young Australian who had destroyed England's bowling on the 1930 tour: fast, short-pitched bowling aimed at the batter's body, backed by a packed leg-side field of catchers. Australians had already started calling it Bodyline. Harold Larwood and Bill Voce were the bowlers built for it; Gubby Allen, England's other quick, was the one member of the attack who declined to bowl to the leg-theory field throughout the tour.

England had won the first Test and lost the second, so the third, starting on 13 January with Jardine winning the toss and batting, arrived with the series level and the atmosphere already strained. What happened over the next six days at Adelaide Oval turned a cricket disagreement into a matter that reached the governments of both countries.

England bat first

England's top order struggled against Tim Wall and the Australian attack: Herbert Sutcliffe, Jardine, Wally Hammond and Les Ames were all back in the pavilion with the score on 30. From there Maurice Leyland and Bob Wyatt added 156 for the fifth wicket, Leyland making 83 and Wyatt 78, before Eddie Paynter, in only his second Test, played a composed 77 down the order. Hedley Verity, batting at nine, made 45. England were eventually all out for 341, with Tim Wall taking 5 for 72.

It was a substantial total but not an overwhelming one, and Australia's reply began solidly enough. Then, in the space of a single afternoon, the match, and the tour, changed.

The blow over the heart

Bill Woodfull, Australia's captain, was a careful, orthodox batter with no interest in hooking or ducking into short bowling. Early in his innings he was struck a heavy blow over the heart by a rising ball from Larwood, and stood doubled over at the crease while the Adelaide crowd, already tense from weeks of newspaper argument about English tactics, reacted with fury. Woodfull recovered enough to continue and battled on to 22 before he was bowled, but the image of Australia's captain felled by a short ball, with England's leg-side field waiting for the fended catch that never came, was the one that stayed. Pelham Warner, the England tour manager, visited the Australian dressing room afterwards to check on Woodfull and was rebuffed with a line that has been repeated in every account of the series since: that only one of the two teams out there was playing cricket.

Oldfield's turn

Worse followed in the same innings. Bert Oldfield, Australia's wicketkeeper, had added 63 with Bill Ponsford for the sixth wicket and was well set on 41 when he mistimed a hook at a ball from Larwood and was struck on the skull. He dropped to the ground and had to retire hurt, the blow serious enough that he did not bat again in the match. Oldfield himself would later say the shot was his own fault and that the ball in question was not part of the leg-theory attack, but by then the distinction hardly mattered to a crowd that had already watched its captain hit over the heart earlier the same day. Ponsford went on to top-score with 85, and Australia were eventually bowled out for 222, Gubby Allen taking 4 for 71 and Larwood 3 for 55, a deficit of 119.

The cable

What happened next took place off the field. The Australian Board of Control sent a cable to the Marylebone Cricket Club in London accusing England's bowling of being unsportsmanlike and warning that it threatened the friendly relations between the two countries. The MCC, offended at the suggestion, offered to cancel the rest of the tour unless the charge was withdrawn. For a period the dispute drew in the British and Australian governments, worried about the effect on trade and diplomacy between the two countries at a time when both were still feeling the Depression. The Adelaide Test continued regardless, Bodyline field or not, while the cables went back and forth.

A one-sided finish

Cricket resumed, and England pulled the game away from Australia. In their second innings they batted long and hard: Jardine made a defiant 56, Wyatt 49, Hammond 85, and Les Ames, promoted to bat with the tail after keeping wicket through Australia's reply, made 69, putting on 98 with Verity for the seventh wicket. England were eventually all out for a formidable 412, having shared the bowling punishment around Australia's attack; Bill O'Reilly (4 for 79) and Bert Ironmonger (3 for 87) toiled hard for their wickets across more than a hundred overs between them, while Clarrie Grimmett went comparatively unrewarded, finishing with 1 for 74.

Set an impossible 532 to win, Australia could only bat for pride. Bradman, who had made just 8 in the first innings, played the innings of the match in defeat, striking 66 off 71 balls with ten fours and a six before he was caught off Verity, a rare moment of counter-attack against a field set to stop exactly that. Woodfull carried his bat for an unbeaten 73, still refusing to play the bowling on anything other than his own terms even after what had happened to him three days earlier. Nobody else passed 21, and Australia were bowled out for 193. England won by 338 runs, a margin that reflected the gulf between the sides on the field even as the dispute over how it had been achieved dominated every newspaper in both countries.

After Adelaide

England went on to win the series 4-1, and Bodyline achieved exactly what Jardine had designed it to do: Bradman averaged little more than half his career figure across the series. The tactic itself did not long survive the tour. Within a few years, law changes restricted the number of fielders allowed behind square leg, closing off the field that had made leg theory so hard to counter and effectively ending Bodyline as a legal method of attack. The Adelaide Test remains the match most associated with the whole affair: the ground where a captain was struck over the heart, a wicketkeeper hit on the head, and a cable sent that briefly made a Test match a matter of state.

Every run and wicket from the match is on the scorecard on this page. For the wider careers of the players involved, see the England and Australia team pages, and in The Follow-On you can set either side loose on the other and see how the series might have gone.

Sources

• CricArcade Test archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and partnerships on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: Australia v England, 3rd Test 1932/33, Adelaide, full scorecard
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1934: the Bodyline tour of Australia