The Ashes

by John Miller

  In lead-up games Barnes left no doubt about his ability, taking bags of wickets. In the first Test in Sydney MacLaren top scored with 116 as England made 464. When Australia was three, Barnes deceived Trumper with a slower ball and the great batsman pushed too early, sending back a return catch that he took one-handed. Barnes returned 5–65 in 35.1 overs as Australia was dismissed for 168. The follow-on was enforced, Barnes took one, and Australia lost by an innings and 124.

  There was more to come in the second Test. On the opening day MacLaren won the toss and sent Australia in on an MCG pitch affected by rain. Barnes stunned everyone by having Trumper out off his second ball. He bowled Hill for 15 and Australia managed 112 with Barnes taking 6–42. T h e tourists did worse, scoring 61 due to Noble’s off-spinners returning 7–17. It was still day one when Australia batted again and, despite skipper Joe Darling switching the order around, struggled to 5–48 at stumps. On day two Hill led the charge with 99 while Reg Duff, at number ten, scored 104. Barnes was dangerous and dismissed Trumper cheaply for the third time in four innings, finishing with 7–121. Australia compiled 353 for a lead of more than 400 and England was beaten easily with Noble taking thirteen. Nineteen wickets from two Tests was Barnes’ tally as he broke down with a knee injury in Adelaide. Without him, England had no answer and lost the series 1–4 but Barnes sailed home with an enhanced reputation.

  Barnes’ knee kept him out of the 1902 home series until the third Test, the only one ever played in Sheffield. He was not selected in the original twelve but when MacLaren woke to an overcast sky he cabled Barnes, asking him to come to the ground. MacLaren won the toss and sent Australia in. Just before taking the field he told Yorkshire bowler Schofield Haigh he would be twelfth man but Barnes was late and Haigh took the field, with Lord Hawke and other selectors unaware of the decision. When Barnes arrived he was summoned onto the field, replacing Haigh. It was a brave move given Haigh was in front of a home crowd and was Hawke’s choice. Barnes was too late to dismiss Trumper but dismissed the next four cheaply and took 6–49 in his debut home Test as Australia made 194. Now people realised why there had been such a fuss. Barnes was unable to prevent Australia winning by 143, thanks to a great second innings start by Trumper (62) and Hill (119), while Noble snared eleven for the match.

  Then came Lord Hawke’s revenge and Barnes was dropped for the last two Tests. England lost its fourth series in succession but had Barnes played it may have been different. Barnes, 29, continued playing for Lancashire, taking more than 100 wickets in 1902. In 1903 he took 131 wickets at 17 and saw out his county contract. His independence cost him further Test selection, and with MacLaren no longer in charge of the national team there was no one to push for him. He was left out of Pelham ‘Plum’ Warner’s team for the 1903–04 Australian tour and his cause wasn’t helped when Warner returned with the Ashes after a stunning 3–2 win. RE ‘Tip’ Foster’s 287 on debut for England was a highlight.

  Barnes was left out of the 1905 series despite many insisting he was England’s best. England won the series 2–0 and there was no cry for his return. Barnes was omitted from the 1905–06 tour of South Africa when England lost 4–1, and despite taking a record 119 wickets at 7.83 for Staffordshire in 1906, was again rejected for the South African tour of England in 1907. England struggled to win 1–0 but Barnes claimed 112 wickets at 3.91 for Porthill Park in the North Staffordshire league.

  At 34, Barnes had missed Test selection for five years but was not forgotten. A lack of talent willing to tour Australia in 1907–08 brought his name to the surface again. But before agreeing to tour he cut a good deal—£300 payment at the end of the tour, first-class return ticket, 30 shillings a week on the sea voyage and 40 shillings a week expenses while in Australia. The thrilling first Test in Sydney saw Australia win by two wickets. Barnes dismissed Trumper for three and Noble for 27 in the second innings. England’s second Test win at Melbourne belonged to Barnes for a fine all-round effort and marked the Test debut of English stalwart Jack Hobbs. Barnes took 5–72 in Australia’s second innings and with England at 7–198, needing 84 for victory, he came to the crease and achieved a one-wicket win. Although Australia exacted revenge with a 245-run win at Adelaide, Barnes was not disgraced and among his five victims was Trumper for a duck. At the MCG for the fourth Test Barnes struggled and Australia regained the Ashes. In the dead fifth Test in Sydney he removed seven, Trumper among them. The master batsman turned the tables in the second innings, scoring 166 and setting Australia up for victory.

  Australia returned to England in 1909 and Lord Hawke reinstated MacLaren as captain but failed to select Barnes until the third Test. The series was one-all when Barnes came into the team, and although Australia won the match it was not his fault, as batsmen succumbed to the guile of spinner Charlie Macartney who took eleven. Barnes took 6–63 in Australia’s second innings. He continued in the drawn fourth Test at Old Trafford collecting 5–56 in the first innings and it was again drawn at the Oval where Barnes took two in each innings.

  Barnes declined to tour South Africa in 1910–11 but was available for the tour of Australia the following year. Olympic boxing gold medallist Johnny Douglas led England in the first Test in Sydney and made a decision, in keeping with his amateur status, to open the bowling himself despite the objections of Barnes. Another amateur, Frank Foster, opened at the other end and Australia made a fair start. Trumper was well set when Barnes was introduced and he made 113 while Barnes snared three. It was a similar story in the second innings as Australia rammed home the advantage while Barnes was kept out. Douglas got the message for the second Test at the MCG and gave Barnes the new ball. His first delivery was an in-swinger that bowled Bardsley off his pads. He also bowled Hill with an in-swinging yorker, trapped Charlie Kelleway lbw and had Warwick Armstrong caught at the wicket. He took 5–44 as Australia was dismissed for 184 and England cruised to an eight-wicket win. He was revved up for Adelaide and instrumental in England tasting another success, taking 3–71 and 5–105. It was another match-winning effort in the fourth Test in Melbourne, with Barnes taking 5–74. Hobbs and Wilfred Rhodes gave England a great start of 323 for the first wicket and the visitors won comfortably. With a 3–1 lead they rubbed the Australians’ noses in the dirt at the SCG and Barnes captured seven wickets.

  Barnes was 39 years old at the time of the next minor county season and selected for the triangular series against Australia and South Africa. The first two Tests against the Australians were washouts and the third was won by England, with Barnes taking another five-wicket haul in his final Ashes match. He was devastating against South Africa, taking 34 at 8.28. He toured South Africa in 1913–14, taking 49 at 10.93 in four Tests. The 40-year-old’s stamina was astounding and he seemed as fit at the end of the tour as at the start.

  At 41, Barnes was too old for active service in World War I and his nine seasons with Porthill Park finished in 1914 after he collected 893 wickets at just five. The team won the championship six times and were runners-up three times during his stay. Barnes signed with Saltaire in the Bradford league and the association lasted until 1923, with Barnes 404 wickets at 5.17.

  In 1920 Barnes was invited to tour Australia but declined; he considered it was too long to be away from his family and he could not come to terms with the MCC. England was humiliated 5–0 by Armstrong’s team. In 1921 Barnes was not too old at 47 to return to Test cricket at home but his disagreement over terms for the previous series put him out of favour. He plundered the Bradford league while Armstrong’s men won the series 3–0. At 51 Barnes returned to Staffordshire and took 73 wickets at 7.17. He emulated these returns until 1933 when, at 60, he played three games for his county and concentrated on league cricket with Rawtenstall. In 1935, at 62, he retired after 22 seasons with Staffordshire in which he had taken 1441 wickets at 8.15. He kept playing league cricket on weekends until 1940, when at 67 he retired.

  Barnes’ record is astounding—189 Test wickets at 16.43 and 719 first-class wickets at 17.09.
He took 77 of his 106 Ashes wickets in Australia on mostly flawless wickets. As well as continuing his calligraphy he maintained an interest in cricket for the rest of his life.

  Chapter 4

  POST WORLD WAR I AND THE BODYLINE SCOURGE

  Australia dominated the Ashes after World War I, with Warwick ‘Big Ship’ Armstrong’s team recording eight successive victories starting with a 5–0 whitewash at home in 1920–21. Armstrong set the scene at the SCG with 158, and England was beaten by 377. Australia won the second Test in Melbourne by an innings, and again won in Adelaide, by 119 runs. Eight wickets was the margin in Melbourne when Harry Makepeace made 117 for England, while Arthur Mailey took 4–115 and 9–121 for Australia with Armstrong a centurion. In Sydney, Australia won by nine wickets and Mailey again took wickets, with Charlie Macartney scoring 170 and Jack Gregory 93.

  Australia won the first three Tests in England in 1921 before a draw broke their winning streak. At Nottingham in the 100th Ashes Test the bowling of Gregory and Ted McDonald was too much as Australia won by ten wickets. It was an eight-wicket win at Lord’s with Mailey, McDonald and Gregory again firing. A century to Macartney set up Australia’s 219-run win at Headingley and the Manchester Test was drawn, after rain intervened, as was the Oval Test, with Phil Mead’s 182 not out an English highlight.

  Australia continued its winning ways in the home series in 1924–25 with England’s fourth Test win in Melbourne its first since 1912. The series was the first to be played with eight-ball overs and auspicious debuts were made by Bill Ponsford and Arthur Richardson for Australia, and Herbert Sutcliffe and Maurice Tate for England. Rain blighted the 1926 English series with four Tests drawn and the fifth won by England to regain the Ashes. It would be the Test starting 30 November 1928, however, that would herald a number of firsts—the first Test in Brisbane, and the debuts of England’s Wally Hammond and Douglas Jardine, and Australia’s Don Bradman.

  Bradman arrives

  In Brisbane, England achieved a 675-run victory, scoring 521 in the first innings helped by ‘Patsy’ Hendren (169), who figured in a 124-run eighth-wicket stand with Harold Larwood (70), a quick bowler who then ripped through Australia with his best ever Test return of 6–32 as the home side made 122. England did not enforce the follow-on and racked up 8–342, leaving Australia a 742 target. Overnight rain did their cause no good and they were dismissed for 66. In Sydney Hammond began an extraordinary run with his 251 the second Ashes double century for England. It set up an eight-wicket win. Ponsford’s left hand was broken by a Larwood flyer, and his substitute in the field was Bradman, dropped for the only time in a twenty-year Test career. England won by three wickets in Melbourne, thanks to Hammond’s 200 and Sutcliffe’s 135. But the Test is remembered more for Bradman’s first Test century.

  England’s margin in the fourth Test in Adelaide was even less, twelve, as Jack White took 5–130 and 8–126. Hammond hit centuries in both innings and figured in a 262-run third-wicket stand with Jardine, while for Australia Archie Jackson, nineteen, scored 164 on debut and Bradman hit 40 and 58. Australia triumphed in Melbourne, a fine effort after England scored 519 in its first innings. In reply Australia’s 491 included 123 from Bradman and 102 from Bill Woodfull. Australia restricted England’s second innings to 257 and on the eighth day the home team came out on top.

  Australia won the 1930 series in England thanks to Bradman. England began well at Trent Bridge with a 93-run win. Grimmett took 5–107 in England‘s first innings of 270 and Australia replied with 144 on a rain-affected pitch. England set up a big lead with 302. Australia made a good fist of chasing the total thanks to Bradman’s first Test century in England, but a great diving catch broke a threatening stand. Australia made it one-all at Lord’s with a seven-wicket win. KS Duleepsinhji (Duleep) (173) emulated his illustrious uncle KS Ranjitsinhji, who 34 years earlier scored a century in his first Test, as England scored 425 but Australia replied with 6–729 including 254 from Bradman, passing Billy Murdoch’s Australian record of 211. The runs flowed as captain Percy Chapman scored 121 in England’s 375 but Australia passed the total. Bradman went even better in the drawn Test at Headingley with 334. A few weeks before his 22nd birthday, he went in at first drop in the second over, making 50 in 49 minutes and a century in 99 minutes out of 127 scored. He was 105 at lunch, 220 at tea and 309 at stumps. He batted for 383 minutes and hit 46 fours. Australia made 566 and England 391. Following on, England was 3–95 with bad light and rain their salvation. Rain and a slow pitch saw the fourth Test at Old Trafford drawn.

  Bradman’s 232 at the Oval took his series aggregate to 974 with an average of 139.14 and set up a win by an innings. England could only muster 251 as left-armer Percy Hornibrook took 7–92. Australia had convincingly won the series and Bradman had announced his Ashes arrival in a way like no other. So what was England going to do to combat the threat of his domination?

  England’s controversial answer

  The answer was the ‘fast leg theory’ also known as ‘Bodyline’ that made the 1932–33 tour of Australia the ugliest and most controversial in the game’s history. It was a tactic meant to bruise batsmen into submission or cause them to fend off a catch, and its origins lay in an August 1929 county game. Ex-miners Harold Larwood and Bill Voce unleashed deliveries bounced at the batsman’s body which could primarily be played, if at all, on the leg side where the fielders were placed. In that game the pair collected fifteen wickets but their captain, Arthur Carr, decided to only use it a few times, avoiding the game’s ruling body, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), taking action against it.

  Circumstances changed in the 1930 Ashes thanks to Bradman, who dominated England. Seeing him do the same against the West Indies and South Africa, the MCC appointed a new captain without the 1930 scars. But it was not easy to find someone and after considerable pressure Douglas Jardine finally agreed. He was urged by his father MR Jardine, the former Advocate-General of Bombay, that he should treat the tour with the discipline and precision of a ‘good military campaign’. The new skipper was urged to use leg theory, with Carr explaining to him how bowlers could intimidate and corner batsmen. Larwood had copped a pounding from Bradman in 1930 and was reluctant to tour; however, he and Voce met with Carr and Jardine in August 1932 to discuss how to restrict Bradman. Jardine asked Larwood if he could ‘bowl on the leg-stump and make the ball come up into the body all the time so that Bradman had to play his shots to leg’. He said he could and recalled the master batsman ‘flinching’ when hit at the Oval in the final Test of the series. So the grand plan was hatched.

  In October Bradman, tired after a honeymoon and unofficial tour to North America, faced England in a lead-up match in Perth. A cunning Jardine left out his ‘fast leg theory’ trio believing Bradman would start with a dominant display. It wasn’t to be, as the Australians were caught on a sticky wicket and an out-of-sorts Bradman was dismissed cheaply twice in a day. The tourists won easily and Jardine had the mental advantage before his plan was revealed. It was uncovered in the next lead-up in Melbourne. Jardine didn’t play but left instructions to attack Bradman. As soon as Bradman came to the wicket Larwood set his field on the leg side with five men close and two deep for the hook. Bradman was unsettled, he ducked and weaved but adapted by stepping to leg and belting the ball into the unguarded off side. Larwood recalled that bowling bouncers at other batsmen ‘was like potting pheasants but Bradman was more like a wild duck’, tougher to strike. An observer at the MCG dubbed the tactic ‘Bodyline’ and the theory had a more pertinent name. Bradman did the same second time around but was bowled by Larwood for 13.

  A week later Bradman was in the fray again for New South Wales against the tourists, who played without Larwood. Bradman contracted flu and failed with his second dismissal off a Bodyline burst from Voce. The flu worsened and Bradman missed the Test in Sydney in which Larwood dominated, taking ten. England’s attack created both unparalleled discomfort for batsmen and controversy. Only Stan McCabe resisted, hooking boldly
with some good fortune and using his feet to cut ferociously. The opener batted through the innings of 360 to finish 187 not out but was battered and bruised. Larwood returned 5–96 and Voce 4–110. Sutcliffe (194), Hammond (112) and the Nawab of Pataudi (102 on debut) set up England’s 524. Larwood, with a strained side, took 5–28 in Australia’s meagre second innings of 164, and England won by ten wickets.

  Bradman recovered for the Melbourne Test and used the lead-up to determine a course of action. ‘I decided to play some tennis shots,’ he said, intending to move across the crease to hook and cut from unorthodox positions against Larwood and other Bodyline bowlers. In a low-scoring match Bradman pulled a Bowes’ delivery into his stumps for a first-ball duck but used his methods in the second innings with a century that sustained the nation’s fervent faith in him. In Melbourne more than 200,000 watched Australia taste success. Australia made 228 in its first innings and England replied with 169 as batsmen struggled with Bill O’Reilly’s spin. Bradman’s 103 not out was the standout of the second innings of 191 while O’Reilly made it ten for the match with his 5–66 in England’s reply of 139.

  Before the third Test in Adelaide the game was built up with accusations that British economic policy and advice had helped cause the Depression and Australia’s economic malaise. England was billed as the enemy and the embodiment of British Imperialism took the form of tall, lean Jardine complete with harlequin cap and silk cravat. England made 341 but the series erupted mid-afternoon on the second day. Gubby Allen, who refused to bowl Bodyline, had Jack Fingleton caught behind for a duck, which brought Bradman to the crease to join skipper Bill Woodfull. Bradman hadn’t been at the wicket long when Jardine clapped his hands above his head, signalling Bodyline positions. The crowd booed and jeered, and lines of police took positions. Moments later Larwood bowled a bouncer that struck Woodfull in the chest. Woodfull dropped his bat, staggered from the wicket and the crowd erupted.