Shameful hypocrisy of Bodyline
Someone is going to get seriously hurt soon. They will get sconed or beaned or otherwise fatally euphemismed. It could even happen on Boxing Day. An Anzac batsman may fall to the baked Melbourne ground, instantly surrounded by regretful players expressing a hypocritical concern that has come many months too late.
But is that all okay? Is that what we call collateral damage? Certainly most cricketers and commentators seem to think so. They treat this vogue of short-pitched bowling as if it is some mighty tactic or music hall joke. They opine or they snigger, but no-one has the courage of the conscientious objector. No-one is brave enough to call it violent assault, which is just about all that it amounts to.
We have a really weird attitude to public safety in this country. Should I decide to pedal my bike up our quiet, local country road with the warm summer breeze massaging my head, then I run the risk of a posse of cops leaping out from the bushes and wrestling me from my velocipede.
‘‘Sorry, sir, but you have transgressed law 192c concerning the safety of the besaddled citizen.’’
Should a toddler trespass onto my property, then I had better be sure all the pool fences and latches are in good working order and the trees trimmed back or I could find myself up before the beak. But should that same toddler topple into the watercourse 200 metres up the road and disappear into an abyss of algae and pond weed, then no farmer or council member will be held responsible for this open hazard beside a public highway.
And I am sure it is not only me who finds it quite astonishing that amidst all these daft rules and regulations, it was quite okay for a group of tourists to travel to an island that was bubbling with volcanic activity. The prime minister was very quick to praise the heroic people who saved so many on Whakaari/ White Island and brought back the bodies of those less fortunate. She was quite right to do so.
But why on earth did Jacinda Ardern not also stand up and publicly apologise to the families and to the countries where these lost souls were nurtured. How can a government make its citizens wear a bike helmet and spend thousands of dollars fencing a private pool (restrictions that do not apply on most of mainland Europe), yet let young,innocent people from overseas wander into a red-hot danger zone.
The cynical and squalid answer is money. Fenced pools bring in revenue in council consents and building work. But adventure tourism is a huge part of New Zealand’s economy. The government doesn’t want to put a fence around that for fear of all the lost dollars.
And that would be all right if Jacinda Ardern said; ‘‘Welcome to New Zealand. We are the number eight wire country. We are a country of pioneers. We work out our own risks. We are free to travel this land, and walk into wild and dangerous places. We are free to run and swim and ride as we choose. Enter here at your own risk. But we are free.’’
But we are not free to do as we choose. That is the price of modern civilisation. It comes with a lot of rules. So, returning to the cricket, with all these rules and regulations can someone tell me how on earth it is legal to aim a hard, small sphere at someone’s head. Am I the only one who thinks there is a crazy contradiction here.
Imagine if we said to a kid; ‘‘Now the reason we force you to wear a bike helmet is because passing citizens want to be able to throw stones at your head. All the fun of the fair. Roll up, roll up, get your coconut here and try to knock junior off his saddle.’’
Now that might sound crazy to you but how much crazier is it than the game of cricket where young men have been killed in recent years and yet still we allow bowlers to come snorting in and try to hit the opposition batsmen on the skull.
After the first test in Perth the Australian captain Tim Paine said, ‘‘It was great theatre, wasn’t it?
‘‘We were just having a laugh when we were bowling at their tail that it’s going to be a bit of Bodyline for a lot of the series. There’s been a lot of talk about it but regardless of the pace of the two teams, they’re very skilled at executing that ball and they set a great field for it. So it’s a completely different challenge to what you get from other teams. They’re very good at it and it’s very clever.
‘‘We need to get better at it but having said that we thought we played really well. What I do know is that our boys won’t be getting any slower as the series goes on.’’
Sometimes I really do think the world of sport has gone completely mad. Five years ago Phil Hughes, a test batsman, was killed by a short-pitched ball. And now the same tactic has become ‘‘theatre’’, ‘‘a bit of a laugh’’ and ‘‘very clever.’’ I found those words chilling.
Look, I admire the heart and determination and even the skill of Neil Wagner. But Bodyline is a disgusting tactic, invented by the English, which was booed all round Australia 86 years ago. When the Australian captain Bill Woodfull was hit over the heart and fell to the ground, the Australian crowd nearly rioted.
‘‘Well bowled, Harold,’’ said the deplorable England captain Douglas Jardine.
But now we live in a cricket world full of Jardines. New Zealand bowl short-pitched ball after short-pitched ball. The barrage aimed at Matthew Wade verged on assault. We are still bleating in this country about Trevor
Chappell bowling an underarm delivery 38 years ago. Heaven help us. Maybe it takes a child to tell us brainless adults that bowling a ball at someone’s head is a far, far worse thing to do.
But let’s not pretend this vogue of shortpitched bowling is just a Kiwi thing. The Aussies can give as bad as they get. And England use Jofra Archer, who does not appear comfortable in the role of thug, like a heavy with a knuckle-duster. How else to describe his assault on Mitchell Santner. One former New Zealand batsman told me that he felt there was something particularly distasteful about a white captain using a young black man in so demeaning a role.
Already in this series we have seen BJ Watling felled. We can think back not so long ago to the Ashes series when Archer left Steve Smith dazed and confused. His concussion meant Marnus Labuschagne was brought into the side and no sooner had he come to the crease than he was smashed on the helmet. Is Smith the new Bradman? Is Williamson going to accuse the fidgety Australian of being ‘‘yellow’’ as Jardine once sneered of Bradman? Is that the justification for this squalid behaviour.
Gubby Allen, who bowled for England in the Bodyline series but refused to employ the vile tactic, wrote in a letter: ‘‘Jardine is loathed more than any German who ever fought in any war. Sometimes I feel I should like to kill [him] and today is one of those days.’’
I have been so looking forward to this Boxing Day test but I do not want to see a repeat of Wade being hit over and over again and responding with ‘‘Keep coming big boy’’. Where’s the cricket in that. This is playground bully stuff and it demeans the game.
Come on New Zealand, set an example. You and we have been yearning for this Boxing Day test. CLR James called cricket an art. Edmund Blunden, a World War I poet, called it worship in the summer sun.
So let us play the game remembering that is what it is. A game. A wonderful, spiritual, magnificent game, worthy of worship in the summer sun.
Look, I admire the heart and determination and even the skill of Neil Wagner, right. But Bodyline is a disgusting tactic, invented by the English, which was booed all round Australia 86 years ago.