Just to put this in perspective - Sir Donald Bradman once scored a century in 18 minutes on the 2nd of November, 1931. It was in a match in Lithgow, NSW. Admittedly, they bowled 8 balls an over back then. But still, that is astounding. Ist over - 6 6 4 2 4 4 6 1 (33) 2nd over - 6 4 4 6 6 4 6 4 (40) 3rd over - 1 6 6 1 1 4 4 6 (27 plus two extras) Was Douglas Jardine petrified of Bradman? I know I would've been. Also, as an Australian, I hold no animosity at all towards the great Harold Larwood. He pounded down fast bowl after fast bowl in a withering display of guts and determination. He was a great soldier and a great example to sports.
@@7s29 Thommo was insanely fast and accurate. The West Indies feared him above all other bowlers in the world. A yorker was meant to crunch your bat, not break your toes. Every world class team must have a demon bowler. Every batsmen in the world needs them to stay on their game.
Thommo was not accurate. He sprayed the ball all over the place,as well as bowling lots of no balls.His wickets in tests came at 28 a piece,which is why he was dropped frequently. Also,in one of Thommo's fastest ever spells,both he and Lillee took a spanking from Roy Fredericks,at Perth in 1975,where Fredericks scored 169 against the Aussies. Again,in Babados, in1978,Thommo bowled as fast,if not faster than he did in75,and took another spanking from Des Haynes,who scored 148 at the Kensington Oval.The W I were not afraid of him,but they did respect him,greatly.They were very aware of his physical threat in the same manner that the rest of the world were aware of the West Indies bowlers.
Wow, I never knew this. However, I think there must be a mistake in your third over, unless there was a run short. If there were singles off consecutive balls then the second single must have been taken by Sir Don's partner, reducing Sir Don's score by 1. Also your scoresheet shows 8 balls, all scored off in the 3rd over, but you also mention 2 extras, hence the playing conditions at the time must have allowed runs from the bat and extras to be scored off the same ball. When I was scoring in the 1970s/80s, this wasn't the case. During that era, if runs scored from the bat from a no-ball, then those runs were credited to the batsman, but the no-ball was ignored (except that the ball had to be re-bowled, but there was no free hit). At least that's as best as I can remember. But I wasn't around during the 1930s, LOL, so I have no idea how the scoring worked back then.
The injuries to Woodfull and to Oldfield were bowled to conventional fields, not leg theory fields. This does not excuse the intimidatory bowling of leg theory but does put the injuries into perspective
Exactly & so many times that simply isn't mentioned & is blamed on leg theory. Personally I think the whole thing is just overblown Jardine didn't invent the leg theory plan & the subsequent field placings he just used it while trying to win the Ashes against Australia. I think the way Jardine improved the fitness of the fast bowlers made the difference.
they don't like it 'up em Captain. One of the morals of the story? Don't duck into 'bouncers'. I'm 5 foot 1, so most balls are bouncers ( and I play against the guys) but it is up to me to deal with it.
These days fast bowlers target head when you bowl and West indies bowlers did it during 80s so those players should be complaining.. But without helmet it was really dangerous.
Marvellous isn’t it. The English take Lindwall Miller Lillie Thommo Johnson etc etc etc etc without complaining. The Sandpaper boys have it once and it’s a world incident
I think it was bradman doing most of the winging. But yes ,you right, the poms took it from Thomson and lillee without complaining. And larwood mayhave been as fast as lillee ,he wasnt as quick as thommo . Thommo was the fastest ever plus he d bowl on a length that for anyother bowler would have been chest height but when thommo bowled them turned out to he right at the head
@@cooldewd35 nonsense , both guys were batting to an orthodox field , Bert Oldfield was trying to hook but missed the ball , Bill Woodfull was crouching so the ball hit him just above the heart . This whole think happened nearly eighty years ago no last week, many other incidents have happened since , equally as controversial and many perpetrated by Australian bowlers that is the game , if nations dont like it when they loose they should try another sport , we do not hear complaints when Australia win.
well that is right...the spent entire overs trying avoid bean balls, then get the one normal length ball. That is the whole point, bodyline was just bowl balls that you know a side cant make many runs from. Jardine's name will always be one of shame.
@@akanecortich8197 Well I never '....bowl balls that you know a side cant make many runs from.' How dare bowlers do something like that! Looking forward to plenty of long hops from Cummins & Co.
I’ve read a couple of books on this and this seems a fairly focused attempt to paint a picture of goodies and baddies. It was way more interesting than that. It certainly has had a formative impact upon Australian cricket, which has been characterised by idols with feet of clay ever since. The English have a long history of claiming the high ground while making the best of whatever advantage they can take. What happens when two groups are dismayed by seeing in others what they least want to acknowledge in themselves.
Oh come on, surely the Aussies still aren’t whining about this? 🤣 God almighty, you don’t hear us weeping about Lillee and Thomson after they bounced the shit out of us. The Aussies need a bit more of the Brian Close spirit I think.
It strained relations between two nations . The closest we have come to it since is Bollyline Tour of India in Australia in 2008 , where wrong umpire decisions against India and Symonds Harbhajan spat happened
@@aniket385 Well that was due to racism and frankly I thought the Aussies did nothing wrong on that occasion. What Jardine did was in the rules. But then, you would expect me to say that…🤣
Only Aussie media keeping it alive. Much like commercial music - Elton John and Fleetwood Mac should have been heard for the last time about 40 years ago, but they insist we still love it.
I saw the bodyline series when it was first screened. It was made by the Australian Broadcasting Corp and whilst entertaining, presented a biased version of events that was little more than a hatchet job on Jardine and England. Jardine thought he saw a weakness in Bradman, cowardice, which he could exploit using Larwoods great pace and accuracy to bowl to a packed leg side field. Jardine was right as it happens.
Larwood bowling bouncers had Les Ames Wk standing very very close behind the stumps. Maybe 10 to 12 yards .Infact the women’s cricket have the WK stand back further.
A detailed but biased account. The BBC documentary on it is dry but more even-handed. And they don't even mention that the MCC squad faced 'bodyline' bowling in the other matches (barring the test-matches) that they played in Australia.
Everyone in the comments seemed to have got it wrong. The Australians were justified in complaining, since the body line tactics were accompanied by 5-6 men behind square leg, so they had no chance. The rules since state that one cannot place more than 4 fielded behind point.
Living in England I worked for a company that had a shed-load of anti-podians. A sports day was arranged and we decided to have a game of 20/20 cricket. We split up into 2 teams. The Poms and antipodians (AUS-NZ and Seth Efricans :P). We (antipods) had a good fast bowler who managed to hit one of the English lads in the nuts after being smashed for consecutive boundries. Needless to say, he fell like a sack of spuds clutching his groin. The bowler asked him "Does it still hurt?" to which the batsman responded in a high-pitched voice "Yeees. What do you expect?" to which the bowler responded "Good. That's for bodyline you bastard. We still havent forgotten." :)
You must have worked in a bar then, as this appears to be the sole occupation of the Aussie living in the UK. Gladly they never stole the land of the indigenous English!
@@stuartbarlow3682 The indigenous English, I suppose that would be the Boudician Iceni "Welsh". The Euro settlers Romans, Anglo - Saxons, Vikings, Normans etc. who are the "English" stole the Iceni land.
The longest blubber in history , if ,whatever they say , the Australians had bowlers of the quality of Larwood ,they would have done the same thing , indeed Dennis and.Jeff did much worse in the seventies . The whole thing was ,then ,.quite ok as far as the Aussie crowds were concerned..such fuss, and still it goes on , at least it proved good entertainment for those lucky enough.to see Bodyline in action.
Unsportsmanlike poms who speak with a plum in their mouth just cant bear to admit they are cheats. Go back to ya class system where you judge people on what background they have come from. We are are the convicts and proud of it. The country sucks anyway.....absolute grey, drab shithole.
you gotta admit that Jardine sounds quite similar to certain more recent Australian captains... 'they don't seem to like you over here sir' 'it's fucking mutual' Classic
Exactly correct and a very astute observation sir, Our captains since Mark Waugh have modeled themselves after Jardine, Whether deliberate or not I don't know but it's still the truth.
love jardine, he did what is common at present..developing strategies how to get batsmen out and win, he did that with the help of very limited resources and achieved results, great respect for him, larwood and other players who were part of the team...
@@MrVikkgill What did you mean when you said "he did that with the help of very limited resources? If you're calling Herbert Sutcliffe, Wally Hammond, Bob Wyatt, Douglas Jardine, Maurice Leyland, Eddie Paynter, Les Ames, Headley Verity, Harold Larwood, Bill Voce, Gubby Allen and Bill Bowes " very limited resources then you know very little about cricket.
I didn't realise until recently that Larwood's career was ruined by the controversy. Even his appearances for Notts were very limited, due to the TCCB reacting to the pathetic Strayan belly-aching. One of the very worst cases of Political Correctness. He was so peed off with the hypocrisy of it that he emigrated - to Australia!!
Well they've admitted openly that it was done to slow Bradmans effectiveness down. So if you aren't going to call it Bodyline, what else can you call it? MCC reserves on tour?😂😂
Sandpaper boys will always be pissed about LEGITIMATE LEG THEORY because golden boy wasn’t bowled half volleys outside off stump even though the Ozzie skippers were using the tactic years before in Australia including Vic Richardson Sir Douglas Jardine England 🏴 greatest captain
I wonder how Bradman would have coped against the great West Indies pace attack. No question however on the subject of English elitism. I am sure that the likes of Fred Trueman would have only been happy to concur with the Aussies about certain members of the English cricket establishment being completely up their own upper-class arses.
I think if Brad man played against the 4 Windies pace bowlers his average would have been cut in half , as it was in body line and he would have averaged in the 50s
By Jove, cricket in the raw. My father was born early on during the Bodyline tour. I am a cricket fan and read books about Larwood, Jardine and Bradman. One wonders what would have happened if Oldfield had died - would Larwood be charged with murder as the tactics were deliberate? Not many people know who kept wicket for Australia in Oldfield's absence. It was Hampson Love.
Richard price , never be ashamed to be English , do not fall for the totally one sided approach of this and most other Australian documentaries on Bodyline , the whole approach was , from the English perspective , quite legitimate, the two batsman who were injured were not in receipt of Bodyline , they were batting to orthodox fields . The whole scenario was blown out of all proportion by the press, they just did not like losing and still do not , the hypocrisy of the Australian cricket teams and press is staggering , the underarm incident , and sandpaper gate , plus the intimidating bowling of Lillie and Thompson , threatening to come at the Batters heads which they did to a very nasty degree to the West Indian team in the early seventies until Clive Lloyd returned with his four quicks and had the same Aussie crying on the field , whichever way you view it all for the spectators it was and still is, extremely entertaining.
Ausies never have taken losing very easily have they? To quote Harry Truman, 'if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen', just like England did in the series just finished; they couldn't get out fast enough! LOL I think the real problem was that the Australians thought they were going to win easily, if they could beat the full England team as they did in '34 in England, they thought beating the MCC would be no problem, after all they had Bradman, the best batsman in history. Leg Theory was all about containing Don, they knew they couldn't stop him, the plan being to slow him down whilst they got the other guys out. Bradman failing a couple of times was just a bonus, the bugger still averaged over 50, but the plan worked, to Britain's delight but Australia's horror.
I often wonder about alternate history events...what would have happened if bradman had been badly injured/killed in Bodyline. What are the chances that england and australia would have gone to war in case bradman had been badly injured in that series
You can safely say this was the series that ended the age of sportsmanship and innocence for Australia. The Poms may have appeared to have the class and be the so-called gentlemen but the Aussies received a rude-awakening. After this series it has been instilled from birth to every Aussie kid "Hate the English, hurt the English, smash the English". Keith Miller, Jeff Thomson, Dennis Lillee, Brett Lee, Glen McGrath, Craig Mc Dermott, Mitchell Johnson have done just that. Every Aussie kid dreams of playing for Oz and destroying England.
Steve Mann Sorry mate you no nothing, Australia became nation in 1901. We had dominion status within the empire from that time on, same as Canada. We all hate the pommy bastards when it comes to cricket.
Stevesalkas9128 ,no so , he bowled above ninety MPH for extended periods , today's fast men are , mostly , not capable of sustained expenses bowling , a few overs and the pace is decidedly slower, not so with Larwood he could keep the velocity above 90 for almost hie entire spell in an innings. Australian sports scientists have measured his bowling using extremely sophisticated modern technology and found that he bowled around 150 kpm and maybe he hit 100 mph on occasions ,for a guy who was only five foot sever this was exceptional , he was also extremely accurate , something many fast men are not , the advancement in sports science , nutrition and the fact that most people are better developed and in most cases fitter than in Larwood's day adds to his achievements, if he had the benefit of today's regimen he would be among the elite of today's fast men.
No, it was a ruthless captain, who devised a plan. That's what great captains do. How many Aussie captains since, have been straight from the Douglas Jardine school of captaincy? I'd say most of them. Who was Ian Chappell more like? Bill Woodfull? Or Douglas Jardine? Exactly. We aren't jealous of Bradman at all! We worship the guy, in England. A whole end of the museum, is dedicated to him, at Lords. England won, fair and square.
Bradman would have been no better than Hick in the modern day game, his lack of ability to play short pitched fast bowling is evident to see even in the small snippets here, he would have been worked out and worked over, also both Woodfull and Oldfield were both hit when no leg theory fields were set,Thomson, Lillee,the West Indies quicks of the 80s were no worse than this.Some absolute nonsense talked about Bradman and bodyline, the West Indies side of 80's were far worse, typical Australian hysteria because their best batsman was shown for what he was, another Zaheer Abbas or Glenn Turner.
Shane Warne revealed that they sledged the confidence out of Hick who they regarded as a serious threat and quite capable of playing short pitched bowling
What England did was absolutely right. They had every right to to bowl in Australian ribs and break there jaws. When it become a popular norm later in the 60s and 70s then Australia was first to do so and kept on doing in every other match. That's the story of Australia as a cricket team. They are a fantastic team as players but are the worst losers, cry babies and cheaters of the game when things are not going there way. What larwood did was absolutely within laws and it was just frowned upon. But the Australia and Bradman himself was so scared of the beating they recieved that they plotted and acted as a vengeful syndicate to sabotage cricket and in the end destroyed larwood's career. Knowing about bodyline series and what larwood did I have my best respects for the man who almost singlehandedly won the bodyline series and brought down the great Sir don's average to 50 from 90 in just one series. Also you want to know what type of losers Australians are then to name a few, # Underarm throw of Greg Chappel, # Sandpaper incident # Thompson and Lille bowling just to hurt batsmen # Monkeygate scandal # 4 australian players found guilty of doping in the 2003 finals aginst india # Not good enough to play The great muralitharan so tried every nasty trick to outcast him and destroy his career. # Crying by Australian captains to play spin in India who themselves make pitches which are paradise to there pacers are to name a few. To summarise larwood showed Australians there place when some real tough men start to punch Aussies. I am an Indian and we use to have our beef with the British. But when it comes to cricket I always want English to punch Aussies as apart from few instances whenever Aussies win there is some catch and whenever they have been cornered they have always piss on the spirit of the game which they so much wine about.
The aussies of the day complained , but in the late 70s into the 80s , none of the aussies complained about the bruisers they got from the 4 Windies pace bowlers as they had dished it out to the Poms and the Windies in consecutive series in the mid 70s
@palspeaks The point you're missing is that the Aussies of the 1930s were gentlemen and shouldn't necessarily be compared to the Aussies of the 1970s and later. At the time that Jardine and co brought bodyline to Australia all of the things you talk about (underarm, sandpaper, Murali, Lillee/Thomson, etc etc) hadn't yet happened. You can't say that something that happened in the 1930s was revenge for something that wasn't going to occur until the 1970s. People can't see the future.
What a great Captain, Douglas Jardine. He cut those Australians down to size. How dare they get above their station. England is the superior country and an Englishman is always a far greater man and sport that that oik the Australian. 😂😂😂😂😂
