Controversies in 1933

13 incidents documented

Eddie Paynter Leaves Hospital Bed to Score 83 — Brisbane, 1933

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.

#bodyline#ashes#1933

🥊Serious

Constantine's Bouncers at Jardine — Old Trafford, 1933

England v West Indies

1933-07-22

Six months after Bodyline, Learie Constantine and Manny Martindale opened up with sustained leg-theory bouncers at Douglas Jardine in the Old Trafford Test. Jardine, captaining England, stood up and made 127 — his only Test century — proving, at considerable physical cost, that he could face the tactic he had unleashed on Australia.

#learie-constantine#douglas-jardine#bouncer

⭐Serious

Lala Amarnath's 118 — India's First Test Century, Bombay, 1933

India v England

1933-12-17

On 17 December 1933 Lala Amarnath, batting at No. 5 on his Test debut, scored 118 to become the first Indian to make a Test century. The innings, made out of 219 added with C.K. Nayudu, came against an MCC attack of Nichols, Clark and Verity and was greeted by spectators tearing off jewellery to throw onto the field.

#lala-amarnath#india#england

⭐Serious

Death of Ranjitsinhji — April 1933

India / England

1933-04-02

On 2 April 1933 Ranjitsinhji — Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, England Test cricketer, leg-glance pioneer and the most famous Indian-born sportsman of his generation — died at Jamnagar at the age of 60. His death prompted a global cricket obituary and gave the Ranji Trophy, founded the next year, its name.

#ranjitsinhji#1933#death

⭐Moderate

West Indies' Tour of England, 1933 — Constantine, Headley and a New Force

England v West Indies

1933-06-24

The 1933 West Indies tour of England — three Tests, fifteen first-class fixtures, Headley's 169 not out at Old Trafford and Constantine's bouncer-led attack at Jardine — established the Caribbean side as more than a touring novelty and set the template for the West Indies team that would, a generation later, dominate the game.

#west-indies#1933#england-tour

🔥Explosive

Adelaide Test 1933 — Woodfull, Warner and the 'Two Teams' Line

Australia v England

1933-01-14

On 14 January 1933 a Larwood bouncer felled Australian captain Bill Woodfull over the heart, the crowd nearly came over the fence, and that evening MCC manager Pelham Warner walked into the home dressing room to be told, 'There are two teams out there. One is trying to play cricket, the other is not.' The exchange leaked, the Adelaide Test became the diplomatic flashpoint of Bodyline, and the most famous sentence in Anglo-Australian cricket entered the language.

#bodyline#adelaide#1933

🔥Explosive

Bert Oldfield's Skull Fractured by Larwood — Adelaide, 1933

Australia v England

1933-01-16

Two days after Woodfull was struck over the heart, Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Bert Oldfield top-edged a Harold Larwood lifter into his own temple at Adelaide. The blow fractured his skull. Crucially, the field was conventional — not the leg-theory cordon — but the crowd did not know that. Mounted police lined the boundary as Oldfield was carried off; the Adelaide Test came within a single Australian Board decision of being abandoned.

#bodyline#oldfield#larwood

🔥Explosive

The Bodyline Cables — ABCB and MCC at Diplomatic Breaking Point, 1933

Australia v England

1933-01-18

On 18 January 1933, two days after Bert Oldfield's skull was fractured in Adelaide, the Australian Board of Control cabled Lord's accusing England of 'unsportsmanlike' play. The MCC's reply offered to cancel the tour outright. Two more cables, the intervention of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons and a quiet retraction of the offending word were needed to keep the series alive. It is the most consequential cable exchange in cricket history.

#bodyline#diplomacy#abcb

🔥Serious

Harold Larwood's Last Test — A 98 With a Broken Foot, 1933

Australia v England

1933-02-23

In the fifth Test at Sydney in February 1933, Harold Larwood broke two bones in his left foot bowling Bodyline at top pace — and Douglas Jardine kept him on the field, refusing to let him leave until Don Bradman was dismissed. Hobbling, Larwood went out to bat at No. 4 and made 98. He never played another Test. The Bodyline tour's spearhead was effectively retired by the captain who had unleashed him.

#larwood#bodyline#1933

⭐Serious

Wally Hammond's 336* at Auckland — World Test Record, 1933

New Zealand v England

1933-04-01

On April Fool's Day 1933, Wally Hammond walked in at 56 for 1 at Eden Park and made 336 not out from the next 492 runs of England's innings. The score broke Bradman's 334 as the highest in Test cricket, took 318 minutes, and included 10 sixes — then a Test record. He still finished the two-match series with an average of 563. The match was drawn after only two days of play.

#wally-hammond#england#new-zealand

⭐Serious

India's First Home Test — Bombay Gymkhana, December 1933

India v England

1933-12-15

On 15 December 1933 India played its first home Test, against Douglas Jardine's MCC at the Bombay Gymkhana Ground, a colonial members' club from which most Indians were excluded by membership rules. Lala Amarnath produced India's first Test century, 118 in 117 minutes on debut, and the new ground hosted only this single Test before the Brabourne Stadium took over Bombay's international cricket. England won by nine wickets; Indian Test cricket finally had a home address.

#india#first-home-test#1933

⭐Serious

Larwood's 33 Wickets — The Bodyline Series Tally, 1932-33

Australia v England

1933-02-28

Across the five Tests of the Bodyline series in 1932-33, Harold Larwood took 33 wickets at 19.51 — still the highest haul by an English fast bowler in an Ashes series in Australia. Including his unlikely 98 with the bat in his last Test, Larwood's tour was statistically the most dominant by a touring fast bowler since SF Barnes a quarter-century earlier.

#larwood#bodyline#1932-33

⭐Moderate

Bill Bowes — From Bodyline to Bradman's First-Ball Dismissal

Australia v England

1933-01-02

On 30 December 1932 at the MCG, Yorkshire's tall fast-medium bowler Bill Bowes, picked for England's Bodyline tour as Larwood's lieutenant, bowled Don Bradman first ball — a long hop that Bradman dragged on attempting to pull. Bowes finished with 1/50 in the innings; the first-ball duck is one of only seven in Bradman's Test career and has been retold in every history of the 1930s ever since.

#bill-bowes#bodyline#1932-33