Bill O'Reilly debuted for Australia in February 1932 and was, until World War II ended his Test career, the most feared bowler in the world. A leg-spinner who bowled at near-medium pace with sharp turn and bounce, he took 144 wickets in 27 Tests at 22.59, was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1935, and stood at the centre of the Bradman-O'Reilly rivalry that would mark Australian dressing rooms across the decade.
O'Reilly grew up in country New South Wales; his early bowling against the boy Bradman in a 1925 country match is a foundational anecdote in Australian cricket. He was working as a teacher when picked for Australia at 26.
His first Test was against South Africa in February 1932; he took 4 wickets in the match. By the start of the 1932-33 Ashes he was Australia's lead spinner.
O'Reilly was a country schoolteacher who had played his first first-class match for New South Wales in 1927-28 and his first Test against South Africa in February 1932. He bowled at high medium pace — substantially faster than most leg-spinners — with a googly, a top-spinner, and a flicked leg-break that turned sharply. His action was high and aggressive; his appeals were so loud that Wisden noted them in match reports.
In the 1932-33 Bodyline series O'Reilly took 27 wickets at 26.81 — the most by any Australian bowler. Across 1934, 1935-36 (in South Africa), 1936-37 and 1938 he was effectively Australia's bowling captain in the field. His best series was 1935-36, in South Africa, where he took 27 wickets at 17.04 in five Tests; against England in 1934 he took 28 at 24.93. By 1938 he was 33 and at full menace; at Headingley he took 5/66 and 5/56 to win the Test that retained the Ashes.
O'Reilly's relationship with Bradman was famously cold. The two played together for 13 years and remained civil rather than friendly; O'Reilly, an Irish Catholic, suspected sectarian undercurrents in the Protestant-dominated Australian Board's preferences for Bradman over himself for captaincy. He once said, asked years later why he had not gone to Bradman's funeral: 'I wouldn't go to his funeral. But if I heard he was dead I'd want to make sure.' (The line is sometimes softened in print but appears in O'Reilly biographer Jack Egan's 1990 work.)
Test debut Feb 1932 v South Africa, Adelaide.
Bodyline series 1932-33: 27 wkts at 26.81 — Australia's most.
1934 Ashes: 28 wkts at 24.93.
1935-36 South Africa: 27 wkts at 17.04.
Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1935.
1938 Headingley: 5/66 and 5/56 to retain Ashes.
Career: 144 Test wickets in 27 matches at 22.59.
Played one Test post-war (1946) before retiring.
Feb 1932
Test debut v South Africa.
1932-33
Top wicket-taker for Australia in Bodyline.
1934
28 wickets in Ashes; Wisden Cricketer of Year following year.
1935-36
27 at 17 in South Africa — career-best series.
1938
5/66 and 5/56 at Headingley retains Ashes.
1946
One post-war Test; retires after.
“He was the greatest bowler I ever faced or saw.”
“I wouldn't go to his funeral. But if I heard he was dead I'd want to make sure.”
World War II suspended Test cricket. O'Reilly played one post-war Test in 1946, took 5/14 against New Zealand, and retired. He moved into journalism and wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald for 40 years, becoming a famously prickly columnist. He died in 1992.
The greatest leg-spinner of the 1930s — and arguably the greatest before Shane Warne — and the bowler who, more than any other, kept Australia competitive when Bradman was not batting.
Bradman called O'Reilly 'the greatest bowler I ever faced or saw.' The line has been quoted at every great Test bowler since, often as a benchmark to be cleared. Shane Warne, asked who he most modelled himself on, named O'Reilly. The Bill O'Reilly Stand at the SCG, opened in 1986, faces the pitch from which he took most of his Sheffield Shield wickets.
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.