Fortune favors hosts
History against Stewart's Ashes tourists
Posted: Thursday October 22, 1998 10:07 AM
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The Ashes obituary was published in the "Sporting Times" when Australia beat England for the first time in history in 1882 Hulton Deutsch/Allsport |
LONDON (Reuters) -- Since the Honourable Ivo Bligh set sail in 1882 vowing to reclaim the Ashes of English cricket, generations of Englishmen have fought, flourished and frequently failed on the cricket fields of Australia.
Bligh's promise followed a mock obituary notice in the Sporting Times after Australia defeated England by seven runs earlier that year at The Oval.
The notice lamented the death of English cricket and concluded "the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia."
Bligh made good his promise and as a bonus returned home with a velvet bag containing the ashes of a bail provided by the good ladies of Melbourne. An urn containing the residue has resided at Lord's since.
The successful 1882-3 mission proved a false dawn, as Alec Stewart will be repeatedly reminded when the current England team starts its Ashes' quest this month.
Only four captains have subsequently succeeded in recapturing the Ashes with just two since the first World War.
The first captain to win back the Ashes after the 1914-18 war was Douglas Jardine, of Winchester, Oxford University and Surrey, a patrician autocrat who openly detested Australians and was cordially loathed in return.
In 1932-33 Jardine was determined to redress the balance of Australia-England series, which had been single-handedly threatened by the phenomenal deeds of one slight figure from a small town in New South Wales.
As the world lurched into recession in the early 1930s, Don Bradman's feats were already the stuff of legend.
In the 1930 test series in England he scored 974 runs at an average of 139.14, including 334 at Headingley, an Australian record until last Friday when the current captain Mark Taylor scored an identical total against Pakistan.
At home Bradman amassed 806 runs at a scarcely believable 201.50 against the hapless South Africans.
To Australians, reeling under the collapse of commodity prices and rising unemployment, Bradman carried the hopes of a struggling nation against a hostile world.
For Jardine, he was a threat to the natural order, which had to be tamed if England was to take its rightful place at the top of world cricket.
Jardine (center) was the first captain to win back the Ashes after the 1914-18 war Hulton Deutsch/Allsport | |
In a tactic specifically designed to stifle Bradman, Jardine order his battery of fast bowlers headed by Harold Larwood to bowl at the batsmen's bodies.
The tactics were successful; the repercussions reverberate to this day.
Bradman was brought back to the ranks of the mortals with an average of 56.67, England won 4-1 and the infuriated Australian Board of Control cabled the Marleybone Cricket Club (MCC), calling the tactics "unsportsmanlike."
The MCC took exception and only government intervention behind the scenes prevented a diplomatic crisis.
"Bodyline" was outlawed and Larwood, who later immigrated to Australia, did not play for his country again although as professional cricketer he had been only following orders.
Bradman didn't forgive or forget.
After World War Two he captained possibly the finest team ever assembled with a matchless fast bowling pair in Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller.
Lindwall and Miller made liberal use of the short-pitched ball as Australia established their post-World War Two hegemony.
The last England captain to regain the Ashes also enjoyed a great fast bowler at the peak of his powers.
Ray Illingworth, of Yorkshire and Leicestershire, had been a fine county professional but no great shakes at the international level.
Asked to captain England in 1969 after an untimely injury to Colin Cowdrey, he responded with the best form of his career and the support of John Snow, moody and unpredictable on his bad days, a match-winner on his good.
In the 1970-71 series Snow gained sharp bounce from just short of length, taking 31 wickets in the six tests. With Geoff Boycott scoring runs in Bradmanesque quantities, Illingworth's men won 2-0.
Australian pitches, with the exception of Perth, have lost much of its pace since Illingworth's days, but so too have the England bowlers.
The last genuine world-class fast bowler to play for England was Bob Willis, who joined Illingworth's tour as a replacement.
Willis spearheaded the attack in 1978-79 when Mike Brearley's team trounced a home side depleted by defections to Kerry Packer's rebel series. England has won only one series in Australia since.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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