Bodyline Casualty

Martin Chandler | 9:05am BST 21 September 2025

Published: 2025
Pages: 258
Author: Gleeson, Gavin
Publisher: Ginninderra Press
Rating: 3.5 stars

As soon as I saw the cover of this one I discovered that AI is, perhaps, not quite all it is cracked up to be. Who was it, I asked Microsoft Co-Pilot, that in reviewing one of the many books that have seen the light of day on the 1932/33 Ashes series described it as yet another attempt to change the result of the series by writing about it? Sadly Co-Pilot couldn’t tell me but, I suppose, I may have started out with unrealistic expectations of such a new technology.

But irrespective of who it was who made the observation it certainly occurred to me as soon as I opened the parcel in which Bodyline Casualty arrived. The bold use of the most famous compound word in cricket in the title immediately struck me, as does the use of the well known image of Australia’s wicketkeeper Bert Oldfield reeling after being struck on the temple by a Harold Larwood delivery in the third Test at Adelaide.

Having read the book I certainly don’t think that first time (I believe?) author Gavin Gleeson is anything other than in the Australian camp where the merits or otherwise of Jardinian leg theory are concerned. That said he hasn’t fallen into the rewriting history trap, other than in relation to a rather odd passage about the 1938 Ashes series, and has written what is very much a biography of Oldfield, a man whose life has much more to it than being one of the supporting cast in the most dramatic series of Test matches that cricket has seen.

Born as long ago as 1894 Oldfield was, thanks to the Great War, a late starter in First Class cricket, and indeed lucky to have the opportunity at all. During the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 Oldfield was a stretcher bearer and the sole survivor of his particular group of four following an explosion. His physical and mental injuries meant that if this was not the end of Oldfield’s service it was the end of his time at the front. Eighteen months after that his military service took an altogether more congenial turn when he joined up with the Australian Imperial Forces XI that spent the summer of English summer of 1919 touring England and Scotland before, so a very long tour indeed, taking the next four months travelling to and then playing first in South Africa, and then back home in Australia.

So Oldfield was 24 before he made his First Class bow, and 26 before he made his Test debut in Australia’s 1920/21 Ashes whitewash. He then, for reasons which from this distance are difficult to understand, lost his place to his pre-war predecessor Hanson ‘Sammy’ Carter before then spending thirteen years and ten series as Australia’s number one, with even the fractured skull he sustained in the Battle of Adelaide causing him to miss only a single Test. And if his wartime actions were not sufficient evidence of his bravery his going out for the final Test of the 1932/33 series and facing the full force of the English attack and making 52, one of just four Test match half centuries, most certainly is.

A large part of the book, entirely reasonably, is taken up with the 54 Test appearances that Oldfield made as well as his contributions to many other cricket matches. Oldfield’s performances have clearly been thoroughly researched and are written up in an engaging and enjoyable way. Along the way there are certainly a few stories that were previously unknown to me and Gleeson certainly picked up some new insights in the course of his investigations.

As to Oldfield the human being the book is strong on that subject as well, and he was clearly a decent and popular man. Two illustrations of that come from his invitation to fellow Freemason Douglas Jardine, just a few days after the Adelaide Test, to attend a function with him and at the same time his refusal to blame Larwood for his injury. It is also the case that, after Larwood’s migration to Sydney in 1950, the two became firm friends. The co-operation of Oldfield’s three granddaughters obviously assisted in building up a picture of his subject’s private life that, without their assistance, would doubtless have been impossible to achieve.

There is however one weakness in the book, that being that it contains very little other than an acknowledgment of Oldfield’s life outside cricket. These were the days when all Australian players were, essentially, amateurs and Oldfield was no different. He derived his living from a sports outfitting business which, despite having to trade through ‘The Great Depression’ appears to have been consistently successfully without ever making its owner a wealthy man. That said as anyone who has been involved in business will know commercial life is never simple or straightforward and there must have been challenges along the way, and indeed elsewhere in the narrative one or two seem to be signposted. Despite his travails Oldfield lived to be 81 and was working almost to the end so there must surely be business and related records available, not to mention Oldfield’s probate records.

But his business is just one aspect of Oldfield’s life, and if it is a little frustrating not to know more about that it is still the case that Bodyline Casualty casts a great deal of light on the life of an important Australian cricketer from the inter war years. It is certainly recommended.