by Chris Waters
There were no such noises north of the Trent, where Yorkshire’s title was suitably saluted. The Yorkshire Post insisted: “Yorkshire’s 16th County Championship triumph will always be reckoned, and with entire justification, as one of the most remarkable of them all”, adding that “when the time comes for another volume to be added to those which contain the cricket history of the county, season 1932, because of its drama, its record-breaking performances and, above everything else, its grand cricket, will have a place all its own”. That grand cricket was reflected in gate receipts, which totalled £10,178 4s 10d – £1,659 8s 4d more than the previous year. The most lucrative fixture was the Nottinghamshire match, which earned £1,100 5s 4d, the paying attendance of 19,807 Yorkshire’s highest for a home game that season.
Nottinghamshire finished fourth in the Championship, seven points behind Kent, 21 behind Sussex and 74 adrift of Yorkshire, losing just one of their last 13 games in a spirited response to their hammering at Headingley. Wisden felt they would have challenged more strongly for the title had Larwood and Voce played every match. However, due mainly to representative calls, Larwood missed four games and Voce five. Larwood still topped the national Championship averages with 141 wickets at 11.62, while Voce took 106 Championship wickets at 16.79. Larwood also headed the first-class list with 162 wickets at 12.86.
Nottinghamshire’s batting was statistically impressive. Five players – Walter Keeton, Willis Walker, Arthur Staples, Arthur Carr and Charlie Harris – passed 1,000 runs, Keeton top-scoring with 1,680 at 42.00. However, it was felt that Nottinghamshire’s batting still let them down, as it had done at Leeds. “While the records suggest no real limitations in the run-getting powers of the side, the explanation of the question why Notts did not make a closer fight for first honours is nevertheless probably to be found in the shortcomings of some batsmen on critical occasions,” commented Wisden.
In contrast, Yorkshire invariably found someone to step up when needed. They also possessed, in Herbert Sutcliffe, the country’s standout batsman by a distance. For the third time in five seasons, Sutcliffe scored more than 3,000 runs, his aggregate of 3,336 at 74.13 the highest of his career, and still the sixth-highest ever. The second-highest run-scorer in 1932 was Wally Hammond, way back on 2,528 at 56.17, while Yorkshire’s next-best was Maurice Leyland with 1,980 at 52.10, his season redeemed by his four-figure August.
Just as Sutcliffe and Leyland led Yorkshire’s batting, so Verity and Bill Bowes directed the bowling. Verity finished second in the first-class averages to Larwood with the same number of wickets (162) at 13.88, while Bowes came third with 190 at 15.14. Wisden said of Verity: “While preserving the power of spinning the ball and the command of length which had so distinguished his bowling twelve months earlier, Verity acquired a faculty of making the ball ‘lift’ and this development brought him lots of wickets, largely through batsmen giving catches in the slips or to the fieldsmen standing close in. Verity also improved in the art of ‘flighting’ the ball even if he was not quite master of that important side of bowling and his faster ball, delivered from a good height, was more accurate in direction than it had been in 1931.”
Twelve days before Yorkshire clinched the Championship, Verity was picked for the tour to Australia. Yorkshire had four representatives in the 17-man squad, which included Sutcliffe, Leyland and Bowes, the latter selected at the 11th hour and given three days to pack and prepare. Verity’s place was effectively booked on that thrilling Tuesday in mid-July when, having known that he’d need to do something special to make the tour, he simply recorded the sport’s best figures. Under the headline “Rejoicings in Rawdon”, the Yorkshire Post told of a village’s pride:
Rawdon, the small home town of Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire bowler, was electrified last night when the news leaked out that Verity had been chosen to travel with the England touring side to Australia. At first there was incredulity and then open jollification, and the customary Sunday night sleepiness of the village was shaken off with a merry shrug. Villagers discussed the news from door to door, and assuredly had it been any other night but the Sabbath, the village band would have been unceremoniously hauled on duty. Verity was having one of his rare Sundays at home that his cricketing duties permit during the season, and as the news spread he was inundated with good wishes. A Press man was the first to break the news to him, and his first words were typical of the modesty of this tall, shy, and rather taciturn young Yorkshireman. “I hope to justify my choice,” he said, “and I shall try not to let the Old Country down.” He smoked his pipe quietly and was obviously finding it difficult to describe his pride and delight. “I am, naturally, delighted,” he remarked, and his face, full of smiles, spoke more eloquently than any words could have done. “It is a great honour – one that any man would be proud of.” He refused to express himself further. There were no airy promises from this already fairy Yorkshireman, who, in two seasons, has jumped from the insignificance of club cricket to the very peak of international cricket. Although clearly excited he adroitly turned the conversation into other channels, and when brought back to the subject of the forthcoming Australian tour, he smilingly answered question with question. “What can I say?” he asked. “Come to me when the tour is ended and then I may have something to say.” Was there something prophetic in his comment? Yorkshire and England may be sure of this, in his own words, Verity will not “let the Old Country down”!
8
Verity’s Decade
They came in their thousands to see Hedley Verity and his Yorkshire team-mates set off for Australia. Some 5,000 people packed Leeds station to bid them farewell and bon voyage. It was 16 September 1932 and Verity, Herbert Sutcliffe, Maurice Leyland and Bill Bowes were heading to London for the MCC dinner. From there it would be a short trip to Tilbury to board the Orontes for the eight-month tour. As they prepared to take the Pullman train south, a familiar figure stepped from the crowd. Bobby Peel, the 75-year-old former Yorkshire spinner, who’d called the young Verity “a good fast bowler wasted”, approached the quartet with a box of white roses. The sprightly Peel gave each man a rose, shook him by the hand and wished him good luck. No sooner had the impromptu ceremony concluded than the train departed amid “a hurricane of cheers”.
The voyage to Australia took 31 days. The boat went via Gibraltar, Toulon and Naples, steamed on through the Straits of Messina, the Suez Canal, Red Sea and Arabian Sea before docking at Ceylon en route to Fremantle. The studious Verity kept a tour diary, noting impressions of his first trip abroad. Suffused with wonder, like a wide-eyed schoolboy, he was stunned to discover “the ship is perfectly steady, just like an hotel” and described “endless interest in watching weather, fish, cloud, angles of sun, all strange to me”. Verity savoured life aboard ship and threw himself into the various activities. There was a choir and cinema, dances and deck quoits, in addition to running and light fitness drills. Then, some 10 days into his great adventure, Verity received a summons. The England captain wanted to see him …
Verity had formed a poor impression of Douglas Jardine. He’d had a disagreement with him over field positions for left-arm spinners when he’d played for England in 1931. Verity even told a friend he had doubts about touring under Jardine. Now Jardine locked his cabin door while they held a private tactical talk.
Tall and toffee-nosed, with icy demeanour, Jardine took some getting to know. Sutcliffe initially thought him “a queer devil”, while Bowes confessed to forming “a dislike”. Born in India, to a Scottish family, Jardine attended Winchester. Physical punishment was all around – as much part of life as morning assembly – and perhaps explained his cold exterior. A correct if cautious right-hand batsman, the 32-year-old had aquiline features. He wore a multi-coloured Harlequin cap and seemed to epitomise colonial arrogance. Jardine divided popular opinion and drew dissension wherever he went. On hearing of his appointment as captain, Rockley Wilson, an ex-Yorkshire player and one of his masters at Winchester, predicted: “We shall win the A
shes … but we may very well lose a Dominion.”
Jardine’s desire to meet Verity was two-fold: he wanted to end any lingering tension and to outline Verity’s role in the series. This was not to run through opponents as he’d done so dramatically against Nottinghamshire; instead, it was to be that of workhorse on pitches conducive to quicker bowlers. This would enable Jardine to rest and rotate his premier weapons, Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, who’d spearhead England’s style of attack. Jardine talked Verity through the same tactics he’d discussed with Larwood, Voce and Arthur Carr three weeks after the 10 for 10 game. He set out the strategy to combat Don Bradman, which would ultimately bear out Wilson’s warning. This would see England’s pace bowlers adopt a short leg stump line to restrict scoring chances to one half of the field, forcing batsmen to flirt with a packed leg-side ring. Jardine referred to the tactic as “leg theory”. The world came to know it by the populist “Bodyline”.
Yorkshire’s four representatives on the Bodyline tour (l–r): Hedley Verity, Bill Bowes, Herbert Sutcliffe, Maurice Leyland.
Bradman destroyed England in 1930, scoring 974 runs at 139.14 to help Australia to a 2-1 win. If England were to recover the Ashes, it was crucial that he was cut down to size – and at least kept in check by men such as Verity. After watching footage of the 1930 Oval Test, Jardine thought he knew how to stop him. Detecting Bradman’s discomfort against Larwood, he saw how he flinched and backed away to leg, one ball causing him to drop his bat after striking him painfully over the chest. According to legend, Jardine exclaimed: “I’ve got it! He’s yellow!” Although Verity did not especially like Bodyline, or savour the thought of a containing role, he respected the reasoning that shaped the strategy. In Jardine he sensed a kindred spirit, someone who also took the game seriously. Jardine, too, saw something in Verity – a mirror image of his scientific soul.
Bradman thought Verity might prove useful on “a suitable wicket” but saw no place for him in the Test side. It wasn’t long before he knew he was wrong. In the second tour match, between an Australian XI and MCC, Verity sent back Bradman for three, caught at slip by Wally Hammond. Verity took seven for 37 in that game at Perth, where the Australians were forced to follow-on and eventually thankful to emerge with a draw. When England next came up against Bradman, playing for another combined team in Melbourne, Verity wasn’t picked but perceived from the sidelines a chink in “The Don”. In his tour diary, he recorded: “He was soon making some brilliant but rash shots, eventually being lbw to Larwood’s good length one. He sat back expecting the bouncer. It looked to me as if he was rattled, a state of mind that may be a big help to us in the Test series.”
Douglas Jardine, Verity’s great friend and captain, pictured at Scarborough in 1926.
Verity was chosen for the First Test in Sydney, where the harbour bridge had opened that March, built by the Yorkshire firm, Dorman Long. He didn’t take a wicket in a 10-wicket win, Larwood returning 10 for 124 in a game that Bradman missed through illness. Verity’s memory was mainly of the crowd, which “made more noise than I have ever heard outside an FA Cup final”. One wag shouted, “Give Variety a go” in a witty play on the Yorkshireman’s surname. Verity said it was “a bad match for me” and noted “the Australians didn’t shape at all at the quick stuff bowled at leg and middle to a leg trap”. He was replaced for the Second Test at Melbourne by Bowes, who stunned the crowd by bowling Bradman for a golden duck. Bradman gained revenge with a second innings century before Australia’s spinners, Bill O’Reilly and Bert Ironmonger, sealed victory by 111 runs. Verity replaced Bowes for the Third Test at Adelaide, the match that ignited an incendiary tour. With tensions running high at England’s tactics, Larwood hit Australia captain Bill Woodfull above the heart and wicketkeeper Bert Oldfield on the head, although neither ball was to a Bodyline field. Woodfull told England manager “Plum” Warner, “There are two teams out there – one is trying to play cricket and the other is not”, while the Australian Board of Control branded Bodyline “unsportsmanlike” in a threatening cable to MCC, a charge it withdrew. England won a match Wisden called “a disgrace to cricket” by 338 runs, Verity scoring 45 and 40 and managing one wicket – that of Bradman, caught-and-bowled.
Verity, who claimed Larwood’s bouncer count was “not 10 in 25 overs”, said England’s players were subjected to “the worst demonstrations I have ever seen”. He added they were constantly “counted out” and that Larwood “walked back to repeated boos and hoots from the crowd”. After Jardine won a vote of confidence in his tactics, with the players reiterating support for him at a team meeting held at Jardine’s request, Verity made a key contribution in the Fourth Test at Brisbane, where England clinched the Ashes with a six-wicket win. After Australia scored 340, England were 264 for eight when Verity joined Eddie Paynter, the Lancashire left-hander, who’d left hospital with tonsillitis and a 100-degree temperature in a selfless attempt to help out the side. They added 92 as England secured a narrow lead, Australia responding with 175 before England successfully chased 160. Verity’s best bowling came in the last Test at Sydney, where he took three for 62 and five for 33, England’s eight-wicket win sealing a 4-1 victory. In his four Tests in the series, Verity claimed 11 wickets at 24.63, finishing second in the averages only to Larwood. In all first-class games, Verity topped the averages with 44 wickets at 15.86.
The tour that tamed Bradman, who averaged 56.57 against an overall career average of 99.94, effectively finished Larwood and Jardine. Larwood refused to apologise for his bowling and never played for England again, while Jardine was ultimately ostracised by MCC and had retired before the next Ashes series. Although Jardine was shunned in the corridors of power, and loathed by some who followed the game, he was positively loved by many of his players. Sutcliffe changed his “queer devil” assessment to “one of the greatest men I have ever met”, while Bowes performed a similar volte-face. Bowes admiringly concluded that Jardine “would have fought lions barehanded”, while Larwood said simply: “I loved the man.” Verity thought Jardine unrivalled as a captain, while Jardine felt Verity would have made a fine leader. “No captain could have a greater asset on his side than Verity,” he wrote. “He would make a great captain himself.” Verity grew to respect Jardine so much he named his second son after him; the first was named after Wilfred Rhodes.
An iconic image from the Bodyline series as Australia captain Bill Woodfull ducks a bouncer from Harold Larwood at Brisbane.
Despite the fulminating fallout from Bodyline, which continued through 1933 and beyond, MCC kept Jardine as captain for the 1933–34 tour to India. Verity was the only other survivor from the Australia campaign as England rested most senior players. It was a good trip for Verity, who topped the Test averages with 23 wickets at 16.82. England won the three-match series 2-0 on their maiden Test tour to the region. Verity’s best performance was in the last Test at Madras, where he took 11 wickets in the match, including seven in the first innings, but the apex of his Test career came later that year when cricketing rivalries resumed against Australia. In the Second Test of the 1934 series, Verity captured a then Ashes record 15 for 104 – including 14 for 80 on the third day, beating the previous best of 15 for 124 by Wilfred Rhodes at Melbourne in 1904. Verity claimed seven for 61 in the first innings and eight for 43 in the second to help England to victory by an innings and 38 runs. It was their first Test win over Australia at Lord’s since 1896, and their only one against them there in the 20th century. Verity ripped through the Australians after overnight rain. Surveying soggy streets from the team hotel, he’d said at breakfast, “I shouldn’t wonder if we don’t have a bit of fun today. It looks as though it might turn a little.” On his way to the ground, Verity ran over and killed a black cat, stopping to find the owner to offer his apologies. Jardine wrote that Verity’s performance in this match “may possibly have been equalled, but certainly has never been surpassed”, while Neville Cardus said Verity’s “run to the wicket, so loose and effortless, was feline in its
suggestion of silkiness hiding the claws”. Cardus added: “The record-hunters will revel in his figures. And the gods of the game, who sit up aloft and watch, will remember the loveliness of it all, the style, the poise on light toes, the swing of the arm from noon to evening.” Verity twice claimed the wicket of Bradman, caught-and-bowled in the first innings and held by wicketkeeper Les Ames in the second from a towering mis-hit straight above the stumps. Once Bradman departed, the Australians disintegrated, but summer belonged to the batting sensation. After totalling just 133 in the first three Tests, Bradman returned to form with 304 at Headingley and 244 in the last Test at the Oval, Australia running out 2-1 winners.