Jardine in Australia

UNQUESTIONABLY the most controversial cricket tour in history was made by the M.C.C. to Australia in the winter of 1932-33. At the centre of the controversy was the M.C.C. captain, D. R. Jardine, the centenary of whose birth falls this fortnight.

Jardine was a lean, introverted Scot who played with success for Oxford University, Surrey and England. He was a good defensive player and handled fast bowling particularly well. He had batted capably on the previous Australian tour, in 1928-29. This time, however, his job was not so much to make runs as to stop the other side from making them. If his side were to have any chance at all, it had to solve the "Bradman problem." In the last Ashes series, Donald Bradman had scored a little matter of 974 runs. To cut him down to human proportions, Jardine developed the theory known as ""bodyline"."

"Bodyline's" chief executors were the brilliant fast bowling pair of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce. By bowling consistently short, with a packed leg side field, they made the batsman commit an error through fear of pain, made him hit the ball in the air to prevent the ball from hitting his body. In the series, the England bowlers succeeded in bringing Bradman's average down from 100 plus to 56. The other Australians, of course, fared poorer still. However, the physical intimidation that "bodyline" implied and the injuries the batsmen suffered led to a furious exchange of cables between the M.C.C. and the Australian Cricket Board. England went home with the Ashes, but almost lost an Empire.

There are several competing versions of how "bodyline" originated. Some say it was suggested to Jardine by the Nottinghamshire captain A. W. Carr, for whose county both Larwood and Voce played. Others believe the real originator was Jardine's own county captain, P.G.H. Fender, a skilled all-rounder and superb cricketing brain. Fender was never allowed to lead England because he was Jewish but, achieved through his Surrey protege, his life's ambition of defeating Australia. This, at any rate, is how the tale was told in the popular television serial named "Bodyline" screened in the early 1980s.

A third story, circulated by Jardine's daughter, has her father watching a cinema reel of an innings played by Bradman on a lively wicket in England in 1930. The Don hopped about as the ball rose off a length. Jardine, seeing this, is alleged to have said: "I've got it, he's yellow." Yellow, perhaps, but he still averaged 56 runs an innings, twice that of Jardine himself. A fourth and equally implausible version was offered years ago by the veteran cricket correspondent of The Hindu, S. K. Gurunathan. This held that Jardine got the idea from C. K. Nayudu, who had instructed his fast bowlers, Nissar and Amar Singh, to bowl short at English batsmen during India's inaugural Test, played at Lord's in June 1932.

There have been two wonderful books on the ""bodyline"" tour. J. H. Fingleton's Cricket Crisis, published in 1946, is an account of a participant-observer, written by a man whom Larwood called the bravest batsman he ever bowled to. Lawrence Le Quesne's The Bodyline, published in 1983 to mark the tour's 50th anniversary, is a work rich in historical depth and psychological insight.

Both writers focus on the personality of Jardine. Fingleton paints a portrait of an arrogant colonialist, cold, aloof, by his bearing and dress presuming a superiority to the descendants of convicts. The Australians, naturally, gave it back to him in full measure. No visitor to that country, before or since, has been subject to such merciless barracking.

One story says it all. The England captain was at the wicket one hot day in Melbourne, and swatted some flies with his bat. "Let those flies alone, Jardine," said a stern voice from the Outer, "they are your only friends in Australia."

Fingleton, who thoroughly disapproved of "bodyline", had nonetheless to admire the man's character. Jardine, he wrote, was "the most hated sportsman ever to visit this country, yet there was something indefinably magnificent and courageous in the resolute manner in which he stuck to his "bodyline" guns. They shouted, they raved, they stormed at Jardine in Australia and they cabled, but he remained calm." Le Quesne's verdict was that "the use of "bodyline" in Australia, against Australia, implied an irresponsible degree of contempt for or indifference to public opinion and probable crowd reactions." At the same time, "it took a captain of exceptional strength of character and independence of mind to think through the logic of fast leg theory to this point and to shoulder the burden of obloquy involved in the use of it. It was his courage and his unflinching readiness to accept the responsibility and to take the worst of the unpopularity that was going, that best explains the remarkable loyalty that Jardine commanded from his side ... ."

In truth, there were at least two dissenters. There was the fine swing bowler Maurice Tate, who was never picked because he bowled too full a length. And there was the Nawab of Pataudi, who played the first Test and scored an assured 100. In the second Test, he was asked by his captain to move into an already packed leg trap. When Pataudi pretended not to hear, Jardine acidly remarked, "I see His Highness is a conscientious objector," put someone else in at short let, and dropped the Indian for the rest of the series. Another likely objector would have been K. S. Duleepsinhji, who had been picked for the tour but opted out due to illness. Duleep was a gentle fellow who would not have stood for such un-cricket-like tactics.

On this tour, Jardine faced the wrath of the Australian crowd, the Australian press, and the Australian cricket officials. Immediately on his return he penned his own account of the tour, Quest for the Ashes. The book claimed that "leg-theory" (Jardine refused to use the term "bodyline") was nothing new, and had been used by Australian and England bowlers from the turn of the century. He wrote combatively that "if a batsman of international class seriously objects to a short ball bumping," he "would be well advised to consider the desirability of making way for rising talent which.. can."

The Australians, said Jardine, were "extraordinarily sensitive to criticism." They would give it but could not take it: "unlike most Englishmen, the Australian, while impatient of criticism from without, is not given to criticising either himself or his country. He reserves his criticisms for direction against other countries and their inhabitants." He devoted a chapter to the crowd, dredging out, from old newspapers, accounts of how they had misbehaved over the years. According to Jardine, the Australian cricket lover unlike his English counterpart, was prone to bouts of "irrational hooliganism."

D. R. Jardine was not one of history's saints, perhaps not even one of cricket's gentlemen. But since this is his centenary, we must allow him the last word.

Consider then this defiant quatrain, composed by Jardine to sum up the tour:

Australia's writers showed their claws, Her backers raged, her batsmen shook, Statesmen consulted - and the cause - ? Our bowling was too good to hook.

RAMACHANDRA GUHA

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Lacklustre show by Indians
Next     : Ghei, Chiranjeev stumble