With the series locked at 1-1 and the Ashes on the line, Bradman walked out at The Oval and made 232 across two days. Australia won by an innings and 39 runs, regained the urn, and finished a series in which Bradman had averaged 139.14. It was the innings during which Douglas Jardine, watching from the pavilion, began thinking seriously about leg theory.
England, batting first, were dismissed for 405. Australia replied with 695, Bradman 232 in 438 minutes, Ponsford 110, Jackson 73. Woodfull, captaining a side that had lost at Trent Bridge and been pushed at Lord's, declared with a lead of 290 and bowled England out for 251 in the second innings. Percy Hornibrook took 7 for 92.
Bradman's innings was the longest of his series, partly because rain interrupted play and he had to grind out a session on a sticky pitch. Television footage, of which little survives, shows him several times ducking under short balls from Larwood as the wicket steepened. Jardine reportedly leaned across to Pelham Warner during the rain-affected passage and remarked, 'I've got it.' What he had got was the germ of Bodyline.
Australia took the urn home on the SS Orontes. Woodfull, the calmest captain in cricket, wore a small smile in the team photograph; Bradman, predictably, did not smile at all.
Bradman walks in at 1/1 after Jackson is out cheaply.
Bradman 100 in 174 min, 200 in 333 min.
Rain interrupts play; the pitch turns sticky on day three.
Larwood bowls a short spell that troubles Bradman briefly.
Out 232, b Larwood c Duckworth — 4th of his Test 200s.
Australia declare on 695, lead by 290.
Hornibrook takes 7/92; England all out 251.
Australia win by an innings and 39, regain Ashes.
16 Aug 1930
Test begins; England 405 in first innings.
18 Aug
Bradman 232; Australia post 695.
21 Aug
England 251 all out; Hornibrook 7/92.
22 Aug
Australia win by an innings and 39; regain Ashes.
“I've got it.”
“Bradman is the greatest batsman I have ever seen, and I think the greatest there has ever been.”
Australia retained the Ashes at home in 1932-33 only after the Bodyline tactics that traced their lineage back to this very match. Bradman's series average of 139.14 across seven innings remains the highest in Test history for a series of five matches or more.
Douglas Jardine, then an MCC committee man, returned to county cricket and began studying film of Bradman's Oval innings. Within months he was being talked about as a future captain, and within two years he would be on a steamer to Australia with Larwood and Voce in tow.
The closing volume of Bradman's 1930 trilogy: a series-winning, Ashes-reclaiming double century — and the innings that planted the seed of Bodyline.
The Oval innings is sometimes the forgotten leg of Bradman's 1930 trilogy — overshadowed by the 254 at Lord's and the 334 at Headingley — but it is the one with the greatest historical consequences. Without it, the Ashes stay in England, the 1932-33 tour looks different, and Jardine never gets the captaincy. The chain that runs from this innings to Bodyline is short and direct.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.