• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Bodyline!

Chrish

International Debutant
I personally see no wrong with what Eng did back then.. It's been criticized as unsportsmanlike conduct but they did what was allowed by the law of cricket
 

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Does anyone share my opinion that England had the team that series to win even without Bodyline?
Given that the wickets proved not to be the perfect surfaces (till they got wet) that they had been in 28/29 possibly, but if Bradman had scored another 500 runs probably not
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
It would be interesting to see what percentage of Larwood and Voce's overs were with Bodyline fields. I'll have to reread David Firth's excellent book at some stage.

I also think the English batting lineup that series was excellent. Grimmett was also discarded after the third test.
 

AndrewB

International Vice-Captain
Does anyone share my opinion that England had the team that series to win even without Bodyline?
Well, Jack Fingleton did, and he was there:

"England was good enough to win that year without bodyline and with Larwood bowling to a normal field with an occasional bumper.

Bodyline cost England the series in 1934, due to the absence of Larwood and Voce and their effect upon certain Australian batsmen, and again in Australia,in 1936-37, when circumstances would not allow Allen or Voce to bowl legitimate bumpers."

Cricket Crisis, written in 1946.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
It would be interesting to see what percentage of Larwood and Voce's overs were with Bodyline fields.
No it wouldn't. 18 of Larwood's 33 wickets were bowled or LBW but that doesn't tell you anything (apart from telling you that 18 of his 33 wickets were bowled or LBW.)
 

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
Truly the greatest series played of all time. I trying to think of a possibly dynamic that could garner as much public interest or outrage.
I think if the Tangiwai game had been played in New Zealand then that would be our biggest series ever.

I think human beings need something beyond the normality of life itself before cricket will enter the area where it transcends sport. With Bodyline it most certainly did. A living genius in all senses of the word being challenged by men from across the seas determined to take him down a peg. The fact the crowd sang for him, if the reports I read are true, at certain points of the series makes it all the more hard to comprehend what is must have been like to be a spectator or be alive during it.
 

Top