Bodyline - Tactic that ruined everyone!

This tactic derived its name from the infamous Ashes Tour of Australia in the year 1932-33, which is known as the Bodyline Series, forever. The brain behind this tactic was the English skipper, Douglas Jardine. Bradman was at his unfathomable best in the earlier Ashes scoring an aggregate of 974 runs, which is a World record till date. The English team mantle was handed over to Jardine, and he planned to implement this tactic, mainly due to the fear of the legend. A Bodyline bowler aimed the cricket ball at the leg stump of the opposing batsman, in the hope of creating legside deflections that could be caught by one of several fielders in the quadrant of the field behind square leg.

There were various players inside the English camp who voiced their dissatisfaction about the immoral win-at-all-cost approach of their team led by Jardine, but it was to no avail. Jardine had two potential missiles in the form of Harold Larwood, one of the fastest bowlers in the history of the game and his Nottinghamshire teammate, Bill Voce. The rebels in the English team included Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, who became the captain of the Indian team that toured England in the 1940s, and even the team's vice captain, Bob Wyatt was unhappy with his skipper's approach.

The aftermaths of this series were ill-desired. Harold Larwood, one of the greatest fast bowling talents of the world, never played for England again. Welcomed home as a popular hero, he soon found that `diplomacy' was at work. At Lord's members of the MCC committee had begun to understand the cause of Australian indignation. Larwood was reprimanded severely and was asked to apologize by the MCC, which he refused to do so. He justified saying that he just paid heed to his captain's words, but the skipper didn't support his teammate as the latter was left out of the national team forever. With the World War - II impending, this sourness in relations between the two countries was not at all desired. While Jardine's motive was successful, as they regained the Ashes with a margin of 4-1 and had reduced the batting average of Bradman in that series to a highly mortal 56, this series remains the most ill-tempered cricket series in the history of the game.