Empire: World History - 310. The Origin of The Ashes & The Killer Cricket Scandal (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

How is the history of cricket completely intertwined with the history of the British Empire? What was the Bodyline Controversy of the 1930s and how did it nearly kill a player? Who was Don Bradman and why is he believed to be the greatest sportsperson of all time? Anita and William are joined by Tim Wigmore, author of Test Cricket: A History, to discuss the history of the cricket rivalry between England and Australia.  Make someone an Empire Club Member this Christmas – unlock the full Empire experience with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Just go to empirepod.supportingcast.fm/gifts  And of course, you can still join for yourself any time at empirepoduk.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com. Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Producer: Anouska Lewis Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpirepoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand. And me, William Durunpool. So we're taking a little break from writers of Empire for a little bit of a sporting interlude. if you will, we're going to talk about the history of cricket and the way in which it is completely intertwined with the history of empire. In the next three episodes, two that you get

anyway, one special bonus if you're a member of our club. We're going to be talking about the relationships of England, the mother country, if you will, and her former colonies. So we'll be covering Australia and Australian cricket, especially the ashes. We'll be talking about the test cricket history of countries like India, and then our special bonus, we'll be talking about the West Indies and South Africa. These are episodes which even if you're not into cricket, you can still enjoy because they are wound around huge seismic changes in the political landscape of the empire, but also gigantic characters exist in these stories. So we really do hope you enjoyed, and it seems like a good time to do it because the ashes are underway.

two sides of the world are coming together in one of the biggest cricketing grudge matches that there is. The ashes. Between November 2025 and January 2026, England and her one-time colony are going to be slugging it out for a small terracotta earned that once, and it's not this one, this is a replica, but once contained the ashes of, it depends who you talk to, cricket stumps or the ball used in the very first match. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the international rivalry. I mean, this represents so much more, doesn't it, Willie? It does. I've just come back from Australia this weekend, and people were talking about it. And I got several people telling me all about the history of whether it's bails or balls. So I feel very much part of this conversation already, although it's not my normal end of the market. I should say I grew up with a brother who was a professional cricketer and who managed to put me off the game almost completely. and all my childhood, but I was longing to watch cartoons.

All that was on was the sound of the cricket and the noise of bat against ball. And it's given me a distance. Anyway, I'm looking forward to leaping back in now. Because in this podcast, we are going to be looking at the origin of, well, the whole export of cricket, the origin and the ashes. Where to begin, where did it start? We're going to talk about some of the giants of the game, like WG Grace. and Don Bradman and others you may not be familiar with.

I have to say I wasn't until I started reading for this. Like Fred the Demon Spoffeth and Captain Bly, Ivo Bly, not to be confused with the captain of the, what was the boat? The Bounty. The Bounty. Damn your eyes. Captain of the bounty. Shiver me timbers, all of that kind of thing.

And this Captain Bly, it wasn't Captain the Bounty, but was captain of the English side, which went to a shocking defeat in 1882, of which we will talk more. This is a really compelling story about Toffs versus commoners, the old world versus the new world, a kindling of a republican spirit down under, imperial prejudices. I mean, it's packed full of all of that kind of stuff. And also, this is a spread of a story to other parts of the British Empire as well.

And in the second of this series, we're going to talk about the history of cricket in the Indian subcontinent. And we're also going to talk about in a third episode, a very special bonus for you. you about cricket in the West Indies. If you want to get all of that in one innings, see what I did there, go to EmpirePodUK.com. That's Empirepodukuk.com. But it's true to say, you know, the history of cricket runs like embroidery through the fabric of Empire. And to unpick it for us today, I'm delighted to say we have Tim Wigmore, author of Test Cricket A History. It's just been shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. Congratulations, Tim. Tim's also one of the lead cricket correspondence for the Daily Telegraph and a host of other publications.

Thank you so much for being with us, Tim. Thank you, Anita. Thanks very much for having me. And congratulations. Perfect Christmas present, of course. It is just in time. Just in time. Perfectly timed.

Tim, before we get into the ashes, I always like to do origin stories of all these things we talk about and just give us literally a micro history of when does cricket begin and when does test cricket begin. Because it is before the ashes. I mean, it's way before predates the ashes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a long time before the action. The exact roots of cricket have been lost history, as they say. So there's all these stories of, you know, French peasants playing it in the 14th century.

We could assume a myth. Yes, although, I suppose, playing with something like a ball and something like a bat, that is very possible. What we think of as cricket, it basically begins in the 17th century in England. And the first scorecard, it would be very recognisable, was for a game in 17th. 44. The first match fixing Scambling Cricket is 1817. Gambling has always been a big part of cricket. I think there's a great story then of two teams playing each other.

And basically both teams have been bribed to lose. So you get batsmen trying to get out against bowlers trying to knock. That would have been the funniest match to watch where they both try to lose. The players are sort of defending themselves to the bookmakers by saying, you know, I'm honest. I did what I was paid to do. So yeah. And then you have the mid-18th century, you have more and more matches in England and attempts to sort of actually codify the laws. Because before, people are sort of fighting about what are the actual rules of each game being played.

And actually, amazingly, the first international match, first international picture of any sport, 1844, it's in Manhattan. It's USA and Canada. In Manhattan. In Manhattan. Those great cricketing nations, America and Canada. Seriously. Exactly. It's an amazing bit of that history there.

And then the first English tour to Australia is 1861 when they arrive on Christmas Eve in Port Melbourne and there's 10,000 people there to welcome them. That's the first English tour by Australia, but it's still 80 years away from the first test match. Let's talk about the inception of what we're here to chat about the ashes, you know, that big slugfest that is the ashes, that has brought us sledging, that has brought us controversy, that has brought us so much joy and so much pleasure. We can say the 1880s is when we see this great cricketing rivalry born. And just to give you a little bit of context. So, you know, Queen Victoria is the longest serving monarch in British history until Queen Elizabeth, of course. She's at the height of her powers. It's a huge turning point for the British Empire, a decade of rapid expansion, political change, imperial competition, social transformation.

And this is the decade, again, just to give you a little background of when this first match, this first Ashes match was played. The decade that Britain gains control of the Suez Canal, accesses up a Burma, scrambles for Africa, consolidates its control in India after the mutiny. And thanks to the most powerful navy the world has ever seen, it has established trade routes to India, China and Africa. And so you could say that the British Empire's muscle at this time is at full flex. All children know the words of Royal Britannia and they sing it and they mean it. And in comparison, William, Australia. It's still a federation of colonies like the sort of pre-revolutionary America, isn't it? So Australia becomes a country in 1901. So the fact you have an Australian national team playing before they're a country with a coat of arms is actually very important in the development of a sense of

nationhood. Yeah. It is growing biceps, though, Australia as well. It's fair to say at this time, even though it's not sort of one nation. Gold has been discovered in New South Wales and Victoria. It's soon going to be discovered in Western Australia too. And so this massive, economic boom is beginning. By the 1880s, half of the white population lives in towns, making it more urbanised, I couldn't believe this, than the UK at the time. And you've got settlements expanding into Northern Australia and, of course, you know, to the detriment of the indigenous population there. But let's go back to that 1861 before the first official ashes. You know, when the English go over to their colony, how are they welcomed? You know, with jubilation,

Are people saying, oh God, they reckon themselves? I mean, how does that all work out at the time? No, they're warmly welcome. Then, of course, a huge amount of Australian people at the time. Their first or second generation English is seen as a way of binding Australia to the mother country. The tour is run for profit. It's a privately run tour. And the players are paid really, really well.

The players earn over a million pounds in today's money from that tour, which is incredible. The crowds are huge, because it takes six weeks to get there. They're there for a long, long time when they're playing all the time. So when people say, you know, money is ruining sport, well, money has always been the driver of sport. And that was true from the 1860s. So how does the idea of sort of international matches between these, well, Australia as a team now, even though there isn't a country called Australia and Britain begin? When does that kick off?

The idea of a test match is originally like a marketing slogan. It's used by marketers to pump up these matches. So often you get multiple private tools from English teams to Australia at the same time, which are all for profit, and they are very much playing on these national allegiances, the patriotic element, that tribal element, you get these tours from Australia to England, and the first, what is thought of as the first test match

is 1877 at Melbourne, when England lose for the first time of many to Australia. So that's interesting. So they lose in Australia, but then they come to England in what we now think of as the first Ashes test match, although nothing's been burnt at this point. And that's 1882, you mentioned before. And what surprised me, Tim, is that it doesn't take place at Lords,

you know, the home of cricket. It takes place at the Oval. Now, I love the Oval. I think the Oval is actually my favourite ground in the country, second, maybe Edgebaston, third probably, just for atmosphere and enthusiasm. And explain to those of us that aren't following this quite as closely. I mean, both of these are big, massive, famous cricket grounds. Why would you expect it to be one run the other? So, Lords is in Marleyboon, it's in John's work. is in a very, very money part of London. It's bursting with history, not just the ground itself, but the areas around. The Oval is called the People's Ground of London, which, of course, these differences are a bit

embellished, but the gas works actually just spitting distance from the ground and stuff, more egalitarian feel to that ground, basically, so that they're five miles away. Obviously, they like to try out the contrast between each other. I mean, in short, it was sort of deemed to be the working class stadium, if you like. Would the Aussies have been considered that they were being given the kind of second division place by being sent off to the Oval? I don't think so. I think these tours have such a kind of ad hoc feel. They would have played at Lour's as well in that tour. So it wouldn't really have that sense.

It would just have a sense of its Tuesday we're playing here. They're playing six, seven days a week every week. This is how you make money from these tours. We should say very interesting captains. And if you see sort of pictures of them. Good moustaches. Good moustaches. I mean, very strong face furniture.

the best mustaches we've had on this show since the Sykes-PiCo Agreement. Yes. You could say. So what I love is that they both sort of have these wonderful sort of nickname. So it's William Billy Murdoch, who's the Australian captain. I checked this straight out when I saw this. And he is no relation to Rupert Murdoch. The Rupert Murdoch's were still in Scotland at this point.

Fine. Okay. And for the England team, you had Albert Nielsen Monkey Hornby. And I sort of looked it up. Why do they call him monkey? It's because he was incredibly agile. He's there. He's everywhere.

He's left. He's right. And so they just, they called him monkey. And that's how, you know, he sort of became cemented in the minds and hearts of the public. We should go into the moustaches in more detail, though, because this is something we take seriously on this podcast. And Billy Murdoch has a kind of long pair of rather sort of droopy moustaches that go down to his jowls. while Monkey has a kind of more sort of Hitlerian short and abbreviated moustache. So I think the Australians win on the whiskers.

Yeah. What was the mood like at the Oval when this match was even announced? I mean, there must have been bookmakers thronging to the area. So the game was 28th and 29th of August. It's really, really cold, actually. Very cold, very cloudy. So not very Australian condition. Should have been England field at home.

20,000 spectators in the ground. They pay a shilling each. Is that a kind of record audience or not? I think at the time, yeah, it's a huge audience. We should say there's two innings aside each, which means Australia gets a bat, then Australia back, then Australia back, than England bat. And the game sets up with England needing 85 to win in the fourth games of the match,

which should be very, very easy. The bookmakers in the crowd, they offer 60 to 1 of chance of Australian getting, ending a win. England is hugely favoured. But we talked about moustaches earlier. So Fred Spother, the Australian bowler. We have a third moustache coming into that. Exactly. It's a great moustache actually. It is an all-time classic moustache.

It has waxed ending the moustaches we're about to introduce. Yes, go on. Tell us who the moustachio boy wonder is in this match, who turns everything upside down. So Fred Spolad, I think he's called the demon both for his cricket ability and his moustache ability. Yeah, he has this mad kind of determination. So he says, this thing can be done. He shouts to his teammates in the dressing room. They're very forlorn thinking, and going to get to a comfortable. victory. And he basically just bowls. So you have, you know, you have bowler from each end and he just bowls the whole time from one end. He is basically saying, I'm not going to stop bowling until we've

won this, this match. So he's this mad determination. He's a fast bowler, but, you know, not as fast as as you get today. But he's got all these variations. He's learned things from baseball, actually. So he, you know, he spins the ball in all these clever, deceptive ways. It's getting very tensing. The scoring very, very slowly. There's a man who actually basically has a heart attack and dies in the crowd. Why, because it's so stressful, that's hilarious. I mean, not hilarious for his family, of course. Did I hear about one man chewing through his umbrella as well?

That was in one of the press reports that it was so stressful. He chewed through his umbrella in the crowd. Yeah. And then one of the England batsman who's so nervous, he's about to bat and he's drinking champagne, but not in anticipation of victory, but out of kind of quench his nerves, England is sort of petrified. So at one point, they score one run in 17 overs, which is just incredibly slow. England are absolutely overtaken by fear.

So it's a bit of a train crash in slow motion, really. England is just incapable of doing anything. And then it just gets far too much for England. So they collapse. And they're 51 for two. So they are absolutely cruising. And then suddenly they're 66 for 5. And then they keep on losing these wickets.

And at 75 for 9, the last man comes out. His lips are said to be grey intrepidation of having to bat. So, you know, sort of grey-lipped and tense and champagne. I mean, champagne, you've mentioned champagne. So we can't mention champagne and not mention England's superstar. WG Grace, who's so kind of entangled in that champagne lifestyle. Amazing Grace, this hugely bearded, giant Hagrid of a man. Just tell us a little bit about him and give us his origin story, Tim.

Yeah, he's kind of a cartoon character of a man almost. Again, we talked about it. He's got this amazing beard, the bearded one is called. So he's born into a family of doctors in Gloucestershire. His family all play cricket as well. He kind of reinvents the game in terms of as a batsman in terms of where he's hitting the ball. He's also his force of personality is legendary. So, you know, there's a story once in a match, he's bowled out.

And then he just acts as if nothing happens. And he just puts the stumps back down and carries on. And he tells the umpire, they come to watch me back, not you umpire. And he's right because actually the entrance fee for matches is three or four times more when he's playing. He's fully aware of his kind of financial worth. He gets a testimonial, organized by the Telegraph, actually my newspaper now, and he gets £5,000 through that,

which is half a million pounds in today's money. He's also famously, Tim, isn't he, the face of Coleman's mustard, no less? He's already getting sponsorship from Comans at this point. Yeah, I mean, he is very opportunistic. And the great kind of funny thing is he is known as an amateur, and by that I mean, there is a strange to running between amateur players and professionals.

So professionals are people who are, who just paid a salary to play and then there's so-called amateurs who are unpaid basically from the upper classes, but they get these expenses and of course his expenses are worth far, far more than he would get as a professional.

So it's a complete farce. So when he tours to Australia on occasions, as an amateur, he earns 10 times more what the professionals actually earn, but he's still class as an amateur. Does he have champagne brought out to the crease and things like, I mean, in my mind, I've got all of these images of these gentlemen,

England players who, you know, sort of live an entirely different life to the life of people like Fred Spoffeth and others who come from Australia. I mean, is that the case? Or is that just a caricature of the time? Well, he's odd because he, although he's this caricature, he also, he's actually very, in a sense, professional. He trains very hard. He always tries to get to the place where he's playing the day before a match and everything. So he's got this odd mix of, yeah, is so determined to win, which not what amateurs are, but also he will cheat happily and he'll do everything to pay what he thinks he's worth as well. And he's known. And in this match

1882, he has a fight with Spothoth. He claims he's run out on Australian player. Australians think this is an act of cheating, basically. And so Spothoth, you know, the mustache Spothoth, he calls Grace a bloody cheat. And he then channels that anger into winning that match at the Oval in 1882. So, okay, I mean, this is a match that I actually really wish I'd been at, because it sounds like it has everything in it. The nail biting that goes on from the England Appreciation Club, it doesn't get any better, does it? What happens at the end? I mean, how close to the wire does it get? So the last, yeah, the last wicket falls. The penalty wicket, 75 for nine, Ingin, need 85 to win. The last man, you know, fresh from his champagne while he's been waiting, he scores two, but then from

his third ball, he's clean, bowled. Australia won by seven runs. Ingle lost the last eight wickets for 26 runs, which is really terrible. And one of the first great traditions of test cricket is born, which is the England batting collapse. Do you know, people are going to really smart from hearing that, Tim, and we're going to get letters. But how does, you know, the English press treat this? Because they can't really have imagined this could happen on English soil.

This must be kind of a bonkers day for them. No, it's seen as a complete disaster, basically, and a kind of attack on national pride and the sense that England has invented creativity. cricket and they're already being beaten at it and being beaten at home, which also, you know, which stings a lot a lot more. The best reaction, the most notorious reaction is in the Sporting Times newspaper where the following day, Reginald Shirley Brooks, he writes a mock obituary, which says, in affectionate remembrance of English cricket, which started the Ovalon, 29th August, 882, deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. RIP, N. N.B. And then

The final line, the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. And so this is the idea of the ashes, the urn is born. We're going to take a break in a moment, but on the issue of was it the balls or the bales, where do you Tim Wigmore stand? Because actually, I went online and I kind of wish I hadn't because I got into terrible heated discussions I witnessed about whether it was the balls of the bales that were burned and put into this tiny urn. What was it, do you think, in your research?

Bales is what I think it is. Bales is what you're going for. Okay, we have an answer. Join us after the break when we find out how England intends to avenge this disaster. Welcome back. So before the break, the Bales, and we have it, it's official, the Bales were burnt. Tim Wigmore says so. And they were put into a tiny urn and it is up to one man to avenge the English.

And his name is Ivo Bly, the England captain. Now, tell us about Captain Ivo Bly, because he's up to avenge the English. He looks like he should be captaining the Titanic. There's a lot of, and we've gone on about face furniture, but he has some very fine moustache and beard action. I think it looks like Kenneth Branagh. He's definitely got those sort of officer-class sort of moustaches, as a vaguely even regal look to his facial furniture.

Yes. So, I mean, atop? Absolutely, as you would expect from the 8th Earl of Darnley, no less. So, yeah, he's born Lord of the Manor of Coburn, very privileged upbringing. He goes to Eaton and Trinity College in Cambridge. My old college. He is just the sort of person who tends to captain England actually, not just in this era, but for a long time afterwards.

Though disappointingly, and I check this, just like Murdoch isn't a relation to Murdoch, Darnley isn't a relation to Mary Queen of Scotson, Darnley. Can I just say this is a turn for the Empire podcast, where we just go through lists of people that have nothing to do with the person we're talking about. I don't need to film hours of broadcasting with this. So, look, it's Ivo Bly's job to avenge the English embarrassment. and leave only 12 days after losing the ashes, which does show the type of commercialisation of cricket in the era is just one huge tour after the next. His vow is to, quote, beard the kangaroo in his den and try to recover those ashes. Those are his KPIs, basically. The tour couldn't go any better for him because not only does he win the ashes, there's a function where a Melbourne

The lady congratulates him and she is called Florence and then they become husband and wife. So he leaves with the ashes and a new wife to be. Oh, right. Nice for him. But you touched on something really interesting and I just want to maybe explore it a bit more. He was very much tough. You know, he was, you know, to the man born, blue blood, all of that stuff. You said the captains were always like that.

What about the teams themselves? Because the Australians weren't like that. I mean, they sort of harvested the best players that they could. Could the same be said about the England side? Where did they get their players from? This great divide really in how the teams are built. We talked about in England how the amateur and professional divide, and England would generally have three or four, if not a few more players who were amateur.

And the amateur would basically always be the captain. So between 1887 and 1952, every person to captain England is an amateur. And they even go through, they go through different gates at, grounds, they have different changing rooms, they get far, far, far more in expenses. So there's an absolute class of either that runs through howing and build their team. Australia, everyone is basically a semi-professional. I mean, they are just playing for money. They often have different jobs because they need to do things in between these big tours.

But there is not the same obsession with status. An umpire in the 1890s, who unpers a lot of ashes tests, he basically says the difference is the Australian captain, he will consult his whole team. In-Captain will treat his players as if they are dogs. It'll only consult one or two people who they consider to be of the appropriate, basically, social class. And that quote, I mean, treat them like dogs. That comes from, I think, an Australian player called Joe Darling,

who saw the way in which captains were speaking to their team. I mean, that's right, isn't it? They were pretty appalled. Yeah, but the whole way of building a team is different. So in England it's said that you you pick the captain first and then you pick the rest of the team. In Australia it's said you just pick your best 11 players and then you pick from that 11 the most suitable person to be captain. Although race is important as we can talk about later in how Australia pick their team, class does not have the same bearing that it does in England. And there's this interesting divide as well where batting is basically a lot more fun and a lot less hard work.

So that means the amateurs, they all are the bats from basically. and you have this stereotype which does actually hold out surprisingly amount that you get the batsman and almost a very big of the captain is a sort of toff from the home counties basically and then the bowlers they come from the north and that you know the cliche is of of minors from nottinghamshire and again that this this does hold true to an extent and so there is this sort of this odd split persona to the eng the england team and batting and bowling is is really intrinsic to that. So you have this officer class dimension to it. And they literally don't share the same dressing room. They're all going to different places after the match. Yeah. And then they will not

socialise together because they will go to cocktail parties and they will just not invite the professionals who are the bowlers basically. I mean, to go forward a little bit, this actually helps to explain while Australia are generally a bit better in Ashes cricket. So England's captains are often not worth their place in the team. So in the first 50 away matches at England play, which are run by MCC, Marleybone. Cricket Club in the start of the 1900s, the average for the England captains is 22, and 22 is you want a good player to be averaging 35, 40 plus. So the captain is basically not worth his place in the team.

The Australian captain has an average of over twice as much. So basically, England are often picking a captain who's not worth his place in the side, and because they're so worried about the right sort of person to be captaining them, and this is partly because a cricket tool for England is also, it's a diplomatic exercise, it's about the cocktail parties, it's about meeting ambassadors and everything. And so they are so focused on this, this gets in the way of picking the best players.

So if you're a northern bowler, do you not get invited to any of the parties? You sort of sit around in your hotel while the Toffs from Eaton and Oxford are busy toasting the ambassador. You're free to make your own fun to a degree, but you're often not invited to the flagship marquee events, no. No, but the flip side of this is the way

the Australians then start to see themselves. Because if they start seeing, and this does indeed happen, And if you look at the press coverage of those early Ashes test series, the Australians start thinking, you know what, we can be better than them. We treat our players better than them. We've got a better work ethic than them. Can you remind us again why we are subjects of the British Empire? And you sort of start this Republican nationalist kind of feeling in Australia. You can sort of trace it. I mean, I'm not saying it's cause and effect, but you can certainly see the criss-cross and where, you know, great heroes. of Australian cricket is suddenly held up as, you know, hang on a minute, we are better, we are simply better. Why are we subjugated again by these people? They treat their team like dogs. Maybe they're treating us like dogs. Yeah, I think the English, they put a target on their back through the way they conduct themselves in cricket and through the way that they pick their team and the way they're actually so blatantly not focused on merit in terms of how

they are building a team and therefore you can draw an extension of that to how they're building society, how they're treating their colonies and everything. This is just completely runs through the whole fabric of English cricket. I'll be still English today, but you're certainly for a good century after the start of the ashes it's around. Australia do see themselves as more egalitarian in cricket and beyond. And to an extent this is a national myth, right?

Even if it's a national myth, it becomes important because it's how Australia identify themselves and how they identify themselves as the other to the English. This is sort of Gallipoli with the cricket bat. Yeah, there is something of that. Willie mentioned Gallipoli. And again, you know, you see the great huge sacrifice of Australian and New Zealand troops during the war. There are figures that then come to the four who are absolute national gods in Australia. And I want to, of course, talk about Don Bradman, who you can't talk to anybody who loves cricket, no matter what nation they support.

You will not hear him discussed in any other way than in terms of reverence. So tell us about Bradman. So Don Bradman is sort of the Australian national myth incarnate. He's a boy from the bush, which is very important because he embodies the idea of social mobility, really, in Australia, in rural New South Wales. And he teaches himself how to bat basically with a stump and a golf ball against a water tank. And he will hit it and just bounce it for hours and hours and hours a day. And about this incredible control of the bat. from the late 1920s, he starts scoring in absolutely industrial quantities, really unprecedented quantities.

And so, you know, many people think he's actually the best sportsman of all time in any sport. And the reason for that without getting bogged down is so his average is 99.94 in test cricket. And of players with 20 matches or more, the next best is 63. So he's basically 50% better than the next best, which is really unprecedented. The depression hits very, very hard in Australia as well. So he emerges as this, this kind of icon for a country that's in need of an icon. He's clean living. So he famously scores triple century 300 in a day at Leeds.

And he celebrates, goes to reception. He asks for a pot of tea to be taken to his room. So, you know, plenty of cricketers would celebrate in a very different way. We've seen it. We've seen the footage. Yeah. Yeah. In a kind of unromantic way, actually.

He's so, so focused. So in a sense, people can project anything they want onto him. But he's also very focused on money as well. He's sort of a stockbrokers as well. But because he's so good, he's beating England, which is what people love most of all. And then in 1932, England go to Australia to try and regain the ashes, just as Ivo Blythe tried to do, 50 years earlier, their captain is Douglas Jardine. Jardine is a name we know very well on this podcast.

And they do not play by the rules. And they are famously ruthless. and they often shoot below the belt. So this is the family of Jardine, as in Jardine and Matheson of Victorian Narcos, who we did a huge series about last year. They were the ones who basically replaced the East India Company is the biggest opium dealers to China. They are the ones that provoke this entire war between China and Great Britain.

Although just to temperate a tiny bit, tiny bit, because he's a distant relative and there will be no war and there's very little opium that we know about involved. But apart from that... Otherwise, it's a perfect analogy. Absolutely. That's exactly what you were struggling to say in either.

Exactly. Tell us what, you know, bodyline was all about and could you give it the subheading of Get Bradman? Was that basically the tour? Yeah, that was. So to go back on Jardine, so he is... Yeah, he's actually born in India, Scottish roots, as you said. He's educated at Winchester College

and from a very young age, famously kind of clinical and Ruthen just not care what people think or conventions. This is the same school as Rishi Sunak, we should say. It is, absolutely. And so when he's appointed as captain, his old schoolmaster says, well, we shall win the ashes, but we may lose a dominion. And that prediction does almost come true. So Jardine, this bodyline tactic, so to explain, it's basically, so this is, we should

remember, this is a time when there's no helmets at all. So the physical threat of facing fast bowling is very raw and very, very apparent, even though the fastballs are not as quick as they would become later. But Jardin, he's a bit of a genius because he finds some grainy kind of footage of Bradman scoring 232 in a match at the Oval in 1930. And yet from this double century, he says, actually he's got this weakness I can spot. I've got it. He's yellow, he says, which is that when Badman faces these short balls,

which are directed towards his neck and his head, he is vulnerable, basically. And out of that, he then develops this tactic, which is basically to bowl fast, fast and short at the player's neck and head and have a number of players on the leg side as it's called fielding around them and cramping up the batsman.

Now, at this time, is this considered to be very unsporting or is this considered all this fair in love and war? Well, there've been a few people who've used mild versions of this tactic before, but what he is proposing, what he's planning to do it in a way that's never been done before. He doesn't actually necessarily know how it will be received exactly because it hasn't been done before. But what he's trying to do is find a way to bring Bradman down to size and turn this sort of superhuman into just a normal player. And to do that, he goes to Harold Larwood, who is brilliant fast bowler, who was a coal miner from Nottinghamshire and then became a pro-cricotter.

and he basically hatchets this plan. They're in a posh hotel in London when John invites him to have a drink. And he says, do you think it can be done? And Laird says, yes, I think it can be done. So he needs Lard and these other fast bowlers to be able to do this tactic because to bowl short requires the physical effort from bowlers is massive. The demands it will take to get the ball up again and again and again. But he defends this tactic, basically.

And it's there to attack Babbin, but also he figures it will be effective against everybody basically. What happens is that, so the Australian crowds are really shocked and appalled by this because they see basically how close people are to being killed. And there's several times when players could have been easily killed. I think that no one is killed. When Harold Lauer goes to the theatre once, he sort of overhears a little boy going to his mum. Mummy, he doesn't look like a murderer.

And does Lairwood like this or is he alarmed that he's being cast in the same? Well, Lovd is doing what he's told, and he's very competitive as well, but he's doing what he's told, and he has a complete backing, or so it seemed, of his captain at that time. But Australia, they complain to the MCC who running a shriket, and they say this is unsportsmanlike behaviour. The word unsportsmanlike to the people who run English is like the biggest attack you could make, and it is incendiary. But, I mean, the thing is, you know, the whole England team is not comfortable at all with the body line. tactic. I mean, you've got people who object to the fact that the captain wants the entire team to refer to Bradman as that little bastard, number one. I mean, there's sort of things like that, which, you know, people don't like. And you've also got people like the Noirba

Patordi. Now, this is a fascinating man. He's in the side during the bodyline test. Now, first of all, for people from the Indian subcontinent, you say Patordi, they will know him. They will know him as the father of Tiger Patordi. They will know him as this sort of great princeling who played cricket and wowed the world. But for others, I mean, just tell us a little bit more about Ifika Ali Khan Paterodi, who was he and why is he important in this context especially? Yeah, so he is one of the select group of basically Indians who moved to England and then go on to play cricket for England. Ranji Singh is another in the 18, early in the 1890s in this group. They tend to be, you know, they're very, very, you know, from the absolute Uber elite in India.

But he goes on to play for England and in fact he scores a century in the first match in the borderline series and he later captains India, amazingly. But he's very uncomfortable with the tactics being used. So he thinks they're unsports from like and he's told to field in positions to support this tactic and he refuses.

And then Jodden with his kind of icy stare says, I see his harness as a conscientious objector. So there's this riff that runs through. There's another player, Gabby Allen, wedd Eaton, has a gate named after him at that Lords is also from the same sort of background. He also refuses to bowl body line or field in those positions,

but the other players basically do as they're told. Tim, one quick explainer. Why body line? Because it hits the body. Is that the idea? Yeah, the line is body because before you would not explicitly really be aiming for a batsman's body in the same way. You'd be aiming at the stumps, right?

You're bowling above the stumps, which means you're taking out the most common form of getting someone out and you're trying something radically different and you're introducing this level of physical threat and this physical threat kind of is the tactic really. But this leads Tim to a diplomatic crisis because the Australians are so appalled by the behaviour of the England team by bodyline. Am I right in saying even the Prime Minister,

Joseph Lyons, writes a letter protesting. I mean, it goes to that very highest level saying, you know, this is not what we expect from you. This is not how you play cricket and you cannot try and injure our players. Yeah, and a lot of this stems from John. And he's so, sort of his lack of compassion at the injuries is quite remarkable. So, you know, in the third match, Bill Woodfall, Australia's captain, he's hit above the heart and he reels away in agony.

And as he's kind of reaching the ground collapsing, John just says, well, bold, Harold. He's the dick dastardly of cricket, this guy. He is. And he kind of loves it as well. He's completely focused on his aim, which is to basically topple Bramman and to beat Australia. and he doesn't even register anything else. So you have, yeah, but Oldfield, another Australian,

he has a broken skull from another livery from Larwood. I mean, this is, this is serious, this is not the sort of gentleman's game. This is rollable. Yeah, this is something that we just have not seen before in cricket. And so this leads, yeah, the Australian board to make,

to make these complaints to the MCC. At times, there is a real threat. The tour will be cancelled after three matches. There's five matches, with two to go. Eventually, Australia, they backed down. Of course, there's an irony here, which is that all the complaining that Australia do,

but borderline is great for business, so you get all these record crowds in. Australian board is actually making money as well from their players being under such physical threat as well. Does it win the match, Tim? I mean, do other Brits, does Bradman buckle under the pressure? Yeah, so what happens? So, Bradman, his average is 99 in his whole career.

his average goes down to 56 for this series. So he basically goes from being two great players and one to just one great player. 56 is sort of really, really good average. He's brought down to size. He's almost halved. And England win 4-1, which is an incredible achievement against a really strong Australian team. So in that sense, it does exactly what it was supposed to do. But they lose the moral high ground.

You have talked about the moral ashes last time. This is certainly Australia morally, they have a lot of campaign to do. And I think, you know, if this, you know, hypothetically, if they're, this series happens maybe five or ten times, several people are being killed. You know, there were several moments we could have had death in this series. But there's the odd thing with Lord, even though he's seen as this arch villain, he does at times get these, you know, standing ovations from the Australians. There is a level of respect for him as well.

And Jardine, despite his ruthlessness, he compares the hospitality of Australians to that of the ancient Greeks as well. So there's all these odd different layers. it kind of dawns on the English cricket. West Indies are then taught England the next summer, and they do a bit bodily tactics themselves. And then England say, oh, well, this actually is really bad. That really hurts.

We don't like it after all. And then the penny, and then England are like, oh, we shouldn't see this after all. And that leads them to them basically scapegoat Harold Lawwood. And so Larwood is asked to apologise, even though he has just, he's been proud of the series, he's bowled incredibly well and just done what he was told. And he says he's got nothing to apologize for.

He doesn't pay for England ever. again. Joddin himself and he plays a few more games. And then in this very, very odd this amazing bit of symmetry. So Larwood ends up emigrating to Australia, many is off the series and incredibly

he becomes almost best friends with Burt Oldfield, the man he almost killed and is then a pal bearer at his funeral eventually. So there's this incredible symmetry with this story. Well, let's just skip forward now because as we mentioned, you know, there would

There were two World Wars that brought men from both sides of the world together, fighting together. And that was never true than in World War II, where you have the Anzaks and the British camaraderie being so very strong, and the sacrifice of the Anzac's recognized so publicly. Did that filter into cricket? Did it make what was an acrimonious relationship much, much better? Yeah, and so you do see the presence of cricket even in World War II. So when Mussolini is dismissed by the Italian King in 1943, a conservative MP says, we've got Bill Ponsford, who's another great Australian batsman, we've got him out,

but Bradman is still batting, so Bradman is therefore compared to Adolf Hitler there. The Australian Prime Minister in 1944 gives a speech at Lords when he says Australians will always fight for these 22 yards. Lords and its traditions belong to Australia just as much as to England. So there is a sense actually where cricket is a little unifying force in almost showing Australia the mother country on what they're fighting for as well. And then cricket is used straight after VE Day. as a unifying force again.

So only 11 days after VE Day, there's the first of a series of victory tests. These are kind of unofficial matches, organised between an Australian and Australian 11 and an England team. You get spectators queuing up from six in the morning to try and get their favoured old seats at Lords. You have a very moving, very moving moment

when Graham Williams, who had been released from a German Prison of War camp only a month earlier, comes out to bat for Australia. You know, he'd been in a prison of war for four years. He gets standing ovation and he still gets a half century after all that. So he's incredibly still got the memory of how to play. Yeah, so these matches in 45, which they're kind of friendly, they're not official test matches.

They are very important in sort of giving a sense of the old world, I guess, and being in a sense of normal life, if you like back and a victory feel. And then after Australia are very dominant. In fact, after both world wars, actually, English cricket is probably decimated more than Australian cricket and Australia are very dominant after both. and Australia in 1948 with Bradman as captain, who Bradman incredibly had failed an eye test and was not able to serve in World War II,

but he captains, he captains, Australia. They're an amazing team, and they're called the Invincibles because they go the whole tour, their 33 matches without losing a single game, and they're sort of seen as one of the absolute greatest teams of all time. Well, let's end on Bradman because such a colossal figure. The stories about Bradman are incredible, because he was quite a me chap himself,

didn't like publicity, didn't do, numbers of interviews didn't like that kind of thing. But he was so important that when Nelson Mandela sort of, you know, is released and he greets the former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser at Cape Towns prison. One of the first things he says is, tell me Mr Fraser, is Don Bradman still alive, you know, because he is so beloved. And just one other story before we leave this. And it's kind of a nice segue into our next episode, because Tim is coming back to talk about cricket in India. Lovely story, Tim, that I've been told so many times. There's Don Bradman in his quiet sort of retirement is at home pottering around the kitchen. His wife is watching TV. She's watching a

test match where India is playing and she suddenly shouts, Don, Don, come in here right now. Don, come in here. There's a boy who plays just like you. And it's such in Tendulka. And Bradman comes in and sees Tendulka. Was it his first test, Tim? Where he comes and watches in? No, no. It was a few years into his career. It was established. But they do then have a sort of friendship after that.

You know, the old grandee of sport and the little prince, if you like. Yeah. And they have this team meeting in Adelaide, which I talked to this action and Tendorka about the way that they picked up the cues, basically. That's what it is. They pick up the cues over than anybody else, which means they kind of know what the ball is going to do. So they're anticipating rather than everyone else just sees it and then reacts, but they are getting a sense of what's going to happen. Well, it's in the air. and that creates the illusion that they have more time when they're batting.

I happened to be at the match in Sealkot when Satchin Tendulka defeated Imran Khan on his very, very last match, on his last international. I was doing a profile of Imran and was watching the match. It should have been very easy. I think Imran had only to get something like six more runs in three overs. And then Tendulka came on and knocked, I can't remember how he knocked him for a bit, but six sixes in a row or something like that, and won for India.

And so Imran lost his last match. Well, look, look, the passing of the torch, you know, from sort of Bradman to Tendorka, the two men who guessed what a ball was going to do before, even perhaps the bowler had let go. It's a lovely idea. So, I mean, it sort of leads us very neatly into the next one because brilliant, Tim is going to come back and we're going to talk about cricket and India, another story of sort of a mother country and her colony and how this game shifts and becomes so much bigger. than just what's going on at the ground.

So if you want to listen to it right now, you can't wait. You know what you need to do. It's Empirepoduk.com. Empirpoduk.com. Become a member of our club, and you get all of these mini-series all in one go. But till the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William Duremple.