In the first Test of the Bodyline series, with Bradman absent through illness and Australia 3 for 82, the 22-year-old Stan McCabe took on Larwood and Voce's leg-theory and counter-attacked his way to 187 not out off 233 balls. The innings included 25 fours and a string of hooks against the line of fire that briefly forced Jardine to drop the Bodyline field. Australia still lost the Test by ten wickets, but McCabe's century stands as one of the great acts of physical and moral courage in Test cricket.
England under Douglas Jardine had brought the leg-theory plan to Australia in October 1932. Tour matches in Melbourne and Sydney had already produced complaints. The Australian board, hesitant to escalate, hoped Bradman would solve the puzzle in the First Test; his withdrawal on medical advice the day before the match left McCabe and Woodfull as the new pivots.
Woodfull won the toss and batted on a true SCG pitch. He fell for 7, Ponsford for 32, Fingleton for 26. McCabe came in just before lunch on day one with the score at 3/82.
Australia won the toss and chose to bat at Sydney on 2 December 1932. Bradman, exhausted and unwell, had been ruled out on the eve of the Test. Bill Woodfull, Bill Ponsford and Jack Fingleton fell to disciplined English seam bowling, and McCabe walked in at 3 for 82 to face the new Bodyline attack of Larwood, Voce and Bowes with a packed leg-side cordon.
McCabe's response was to attack. He hooked off the front foot, off the back foot, off short balls and off length balls, three consecutive fours off Larwood's first spell taking him to 30. After three boundaries against Gubby Allen — who refused on principle to bowl Bodyline — Jardine reset the field and Larwood resumed leg-theory. McCabe kept hooking. By stumps on day one he was 127 not out from 173 balls; Australia were 7 for 296.
On day two he added 60 of the last 70 runs Australia made, in just under an hour, finishing 187 not out from 233 balls with 25 fours, when Tim Wall was dismissed and Australia all out for 360. He had instructed his father in the dressing room: 'If I get hit, Dad, don't jump the fence.'
England replied with 524 (Sutcliffe 194, Hammond 112). Australia, again without Bradman, made only 164 in their second innings, and England won by ten wickets. But the McCabe innings became the moral spine of Australia's bodyline summer. He had shown the response was not impossible, only extraordinarily dangerous. Bradman would adapt his own response — backing away to leg, cutting square — across the rest of the series. McCabe's innings was Australian cricket telling England that bodyline could be batted, even if at appalling personal cost.
Bradman ruled out on medical advice the day before the Test.
Woodfull, Ponsford, Fingleton out cheaply; Australia 3/82.
McCabe in; tells his father not to jump the fence if he is hit.
Three fours in a row off Larwood; Allen refuses Bodyline.
127 not out at stumps day one; Australia 7/296.
Adds 60 of last 70 runs in under an hour on day two.
Out as last man for 187* off 233 balls, 25 fours.
England win by 10 wickets — McCabe's innings the only Australian highlight.
1 Dec 1932
Bradman ruled out of First Test.
2 Dec, lunch
Australia 3/82; McCabe arrives.
2 Dec, stumps
McCabe 127*; Australia 7/296.
3 Dec
McCabe carries to 187* in 25 minutes more.
3 Dec
Australia all out 360; England begin reply.
7 Dec
England win by 10 wickets; McCabe still feted.
“If I get hit, Dad, don't jump the fence.”
“The bravest cricket I ever saw.”
McCabe was on every front page in Australia. Cables of congratulation arrived from Bradman in Sydney's eastern suburbs and from cricket writers across the Empire. Bradman returned for the second Test at Melbourne and was bowled first ball by Bowes; Australia still won that Test, but McCabe had already changed the tone. By the third Test at Adelaide, Bodyline had become a diplomatic incident; McCabe's 187* was always quoted as proof that the Australian batsmen were not merely complaining.
One of the three innings on which McCabe's reputation rests forever, and the first proof that Bodyline could be answered with a bat.
McCabe would go on to play two more 'forever' innings — 189 not out at Johannesburg in 1935-36 and 232 at Trent Bridge in 1938. His three signature innings, set against Bradman's overshadowing record, are why connoisseurs of pre-war batting still rate him a peer. The 187* sits at the centre of that triptych. Bradman himself wrote later that what McCabe did at Sydney 'was the bravest cricket I ever saw.'
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.