McCabe made his breakthrough in the following Australian season in 1932–33, which was went down in history due to England's use of the controversial Bodyline tactics. In the lead-up to the Tests, McCabe scored 43, 67 and 19 in two tour matches against the Englishmen.[18]
In the First Test in Sydney, with England captain Douglas Jardine again employed Bodyline. This involved constant intimidatory short-pitched leg-side bowling with a leg-cordon to catch balls fended off by the batsman, in an attempt to curtail Donald Bradman, generally regarded as the best batsman ever, from scoring.[42] McCabe came to the wicket on the first day, the score at 3/82 with Bill Woodfull, Bill Ponsford and Jack Fingleton already dismissed, and Bradman not playing due to illness.[8] Having warned his parents, who were watching him in Test cricket for the only time, not to jump the fence if he was hit, McCabe took guard. Jardine had deployed seven men on the leg-side, usually with five close catchers and two men patrolling the boundary for hook shots. McCabe hooked the first ball he received from Bodyline spearhead Harold Larwood for a boundary.[43] After Kippax fell with the score at 87, McCabe and Vic Richardson added 129 before Richardson fell. McCabe reached stumps at 127 not out with the total 6/290. His innings was marked by dangerous cutting and compulsive hooking of short-pitched deliveries in front of his face, unfazed by the repeated body blows which hit his team-mates.[8]
McCabe walks out to bat during the First Test of the Bodyline series.
McCabe's attack forced Jardine to abandon his Bodyline approach.[8] Jardine removed Larwood from the attack and brought on Gubby Allen. Under the professional-amateur divide of the time, England's captain was always an amateur, and professionals, such as Larwood, were obliged to obey the captain's orders. Allen was an amateur who refused to bowl Bodyline. McCabe struck three consecutive fours from Allen's conventional fast bowling, prompting Jardine to call for Bodyline field placings. Allen refused, so Jardine was forced to drop his Bodyline attack and resort to the spin bowling of Hedley Verity and Wally Hammond.[44] The crowd responded to his instinctive aggression with wild cheering. McCabe said that "it was really an impulsive, senseless innings, a gamble that should not have been made but came off against all the odds".[44]
McCabe scored 60 of the 70 runs that Australia added on the second day to finish 187 not out from 233 balls as Australia were bowled out for 360. McCabe added the runs in just one hour of batting and ended with 25 boundaries in his innings, which lasted a little over four hours. He was particularly effectively in farming the strike while batting with his tail end partners; in his last wicket stand of 55 with Tim Wall, he scored 50 of the runs in just half an hour.[2][45]
He was praised by Larwood, who spearheaded the Bodyline attack and totalled 10/128 for the match, which ended in a decisive 10-wicket victory for England.[8] Wisden reported that McCabe "scored off Larwood's bowling in a style which for daring and brilliance was not approached by any other Australian during the tour".[45] Richard Whitington wrote in the 1970s that McCabe's innings "still warms the blood of the dwindling number of Australians who watched it".[46] McCabe received a thunderous standing ovation from the 46,000 spectators.[47] Immediately after the innings, McCabe told his teammates that he would never be able to replicate the feat because it was too difficult to hook the ball consistently without hitting it up into the air and giving away catching opportunities.[48]
Umpire George Hele, who officiated the match said:[49]
Stan gave Voce all he was bargaining for. He and Vic Richardson took all the English bowlers could hurl at the them. This innings stamped Stan as one of the world's greatest batsmen. He stepped into the [trajectory of the] bowling, he hooked, he pulled, and did what he liked with it. The faster they bowled the more he seemed to enjoy it.[49]
