Morality, History and Cricket

I'm in the middle of reading Duncan Hamilton's Harold Larwood, his biography of the Nottinghamshire and England fast bowler.

Larwood was one of the great England fast bowlers of the inter-war period. He took 78 test wickets in 21 matches at an average of 28.35 runs per wicket. In contrast the indisputably great Australian spinner Bill O'Reilly took 144 wickets in 27 matches at 22.59. His first-class average meanwhile was 17.51; his great friend and partner-in-bowling Bill Voce (also of Nottinghamshire and England) had a first class average of 23.08.

Still it is Bodyline, as Hamilton rightly argues, that defines histories of Larwood's career. 'Bodyline' is a style of bowling that aims to pitch short, towards the batsman's body in line with leg stump. The ball is delivered at speed (and Larwood could unquestionably deliver speed). This tactic gives the batsman two options. Number one is try ducking, or simply being hit. This was not to be attempted lightly. Bert Oldfield, the Australian wicket-keeper during the 1933 Ashes series where Bodyline was deployed by the England team, fractured his skull mis-hitting a shot off Larwood's bowling. The other was to risk hitting the ball - and unless you played the ball well delivering a deflection to the fielders behind square leg.

Bodyline was designed to temper the batting of Donald Bradman, an Australian batsman who is to this day the greatest batsman who ever lived (his career average of 99.94 runs per match is easily the highest in cricketing history). It worked to the extent that Bradman's series average was 56.57 as opposed to his average in England during the 1930 Ashes series of 139.14. It was viewed as an affront to the spirit of cricket though (no formal law was being broken) and led to a diplomatic incident between Britain and Australia.

Hamilton exonerates Larwood in his biography. Larwood was influenced by his natural deference towards his county captain, Arthur Carr, and his national captain, Douglas Jardine, both men who strenuously disliked Australians. He bowled what his captain ordered. Popular memory of both the Oldfield incident and when Larwood hit the Australian captain Bill Woodfull in the chest has both balls being 'Bodyline', when in fact they were 'just' hostile fast bowling. Larwood was horrified by his hitting of Oldfield and the MCC and the tour manager Plum Warner were responsible for officially supporting Larwood and then hanging him out to dry after Bodyline became too controversial.

In fact the only person who comes out of Harold Larwood relatively morally is Bill Woodfull, who refused to counter England with Australian Bodyline bowling. Jardine is plainly described as ruthless, even by Larwood. Larwood meanwhile comes across as paradoxic; a shy, retiring man who nonetheless contained within him a fiery, competitive streak. He was following orders in Australia, true, and Bodyline was not quite the new threat pounced upon the Australians that popular myth might remember it being. Yet he did bowl those balls. Given the nature of Bodyline, it's difficult to see what else one might have expected to happen.

In the end it's difficult to tell. One can sit here 80 years on and moralise to one's heart's content. England in 2010 is not Australia in 1933 though. Harold Larwood lived in an age when protection for the cricketer, personally and in terms of their career, was weak. A small accident could end a career for ever; there were no physiotherapists. Men expected a greater degree of tragedy in their lives. It comes down to the old question historians, and people, have to ask themselves: can we really judge them, we who were not there?

P.S: In more philosophically simple news, London Irish beat Munster in the Heineken Cup. Get in!