Between The Wars: Bradman and Bodyline
International cricket recommenced with a tour by a weakened England team in 1920-21. The strong Australian team, led by Armstrong and with a bowling attack spearheaded by Gregory and Ted McDonald won the series 5-0, the first time this was achieved in an Ashes series. The 1920s was an era of batting dominance. The Victorian opening batsman, Bill Ponsford was the chief destroyer of bowling attacks, scoring 429 against Tasmania in 1922-23 and topping that in 1927-28 with an innings against Queensland of 437. In between these innings, in 1926-27, his Victorian team made 1,107, the highest first class innings total to date. Ponsford's contribution was a mere 352.
However, the greatest run machine in the history of Australian cricket was yet to come. Don Bradman, born in Cootamundra and raised in Bowral was 20 when he made his Test debut in the first Test of the 1928-29 series against England. He made 18 and 1 and was promptly dropped for the next Test. Recalled for the third Test in Melbourne, he scored 112 in the second innings to establish his place in the team for the next twenty years. During his illustrious career, he would hold the records for the highest individual Test innings and the most centuries in Test cricket and when he retired in 1948 he had the highest Test batting average, the last a record he still holds. He scored 117 first class centuries, still the only Australian to score a century of centuries and was knighted for services to cricket.
All that was still to come for Bradman when he toured England with the Australian team in 1930. Bradman scored heavily, 974 runs at an average of 139.14 including a then world record 334 at Leeds, two other double centuries and another single. Watching these displays of batting was Douglas Jardine, playing for Surrey. Following discussions with other observers such as Percy Fender and George Duckworth, he developed a tactic to limit the prodigious run scoring of Bradman and the others. The tactic, originally called fast leg theory and later called bodyline involved fast short pitched bowling directed at the batsman's body and a packed leg side field. Appointed captain of England for the 1932-33 series in Australia, Jardine was able to put these theories into practice.
Combined with bowlers of the speed and accuracy of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, the tactic required batsmen to risk injury in order to protect their wicket. In the third Test in Adelaide, Larwood struck Australian captain Bill Woodfull above the heart and fractured wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield's skull. The crowd was incensed and public feeling in Australia was high. A minor diplomatic incident ensued and for a time it appeared that cricketing relations between the two nations would be cut and the tour called off. Eventually diplomacy prevailed and the tour continued, England winning the series 4-1. The effect of bodyline can be seen by looking at Bradman's batting average, a respectable 56.57, the highest for Australia that series, but much lower than his Shield average of 150 over the same period.
In December 1934, the Australian women's team played the English women in the first women's Test match at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground. Despite a 7 wicket haul to Anne Palmer in the first innings, the English women were too strong and won by 9 wickets.
Read more about this topic: History Of Australian Cricket