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‘I don’t want to see you, Mr Warner. There are two teams out there; one is trying to play cricket and the other is not.’

Australian captain Bill Woodfull’s disdainful response to the England manager’s suppliant knock on the Australian’s dressing room door during the 1933 Adelaide Test.

Given that cricket is supposed to stand for everything that is decent and upstanding in the world, it is remarkable how often down the years that the ‘sport of gentlemen’ has found itself embroiled in bitter controversies and rancour. It is also surprising how these disagreements quickly escalate far beyond the field of play – even in some cases leading to governmental involvement. Surprising, that is, until you consider the framework of international cricket, and how the sport was taken from the United Kingdom to the far-flung corners of the globe in the first place.

For that, we need to travel back to the time to what was supposedly the glorious age of the British Empire. Glorious for Britain, certainly, but not quite so much fun for those who suddenly found themselves conquered (‘discovered’ in some cases) and ruthlessly exploited as the developing European countries set about expanding their global trade.

Britain was not alone. The Dutch were particularly keen rivals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and evidence of their overseas occupations can be found on the cricket fields of Sri Lanka and South Africa today. Sri Lanka’s Burgher people are a Eurasian ethnic group formed by the union of predominantly Dutch settlers and local Sinhalese women. Angelo Mathews, the Sri Lanka vice-captain, is a member of the Burgher community. So too are Graeme Labrooy and the towering Michael Vandort, scorer of two laboured centuries against England in 2006 and 2007, who at six foot five must be the tallest-ever Sri Lankan Test cricketer. Meanwhile, descendants of the first Dutch colonists are regular members of the South Africa cricket team, and there is dedicated television and radio commentary broadcast throughout the Republic in Afrikaans, the guttural language that evolved from Dutch into a daughter language. Ewie Cronje, father of South Africa’s disgraced former captain Hansie Cronje, whose Huguenot ancestors took part in the Great Trek away from British rule in the 1830s, is one such specialist commentator.

The French and the Portuguese were also busily establishing overseas trading posts but following the defeat of Napoleonic France in 1815 Britain enjoyed a century of almost unchallenged dominance, to the point that by 1922 almost a quarter of the globe and a fifth of the world’s population was ruled by the United Kingdom. (It is worth bearing in mind that this did not include the United States of America, which had successfully fought for its independence by 1783.) Wherever Britain ruled, cricket was played, and all the Test-playing nations – Australia, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe – were former colonies within the British Empire. All but Zimbabwe are still associated with the UK through membership of the Commonwealth.

Bloody conflicts were usually Britain’s answer to putting down local insurgency, and these have left deep scars in the history of the Empire. Britain was responsible for much of the slave trade that transported Africans in the most ghastly conditions imaginable to the Caribbean to work on the sugar plantations. While African slaves worked in the fields cutting corn, Asians were shipped in from the Indian subcontinent to become the white-collar workers of the time. The resulting division between the two racial groups is responsible for serious antagonism in countries such as Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago today.

A drive along the potholed roads of Antigua to the little town of Liberta, which lies to the south of the island, is a reminder of those early days, for this is the settlement that was established by the first freed slaves in 1835. Meanwhile, on Barbados, on the main highway from the airport you will encounter the Emancipation Statue, which dramatically portrays a muscle-bound Afro-Caribbean slave stripped to the waist and staring skywards with a broken chain dangling from each wrist. The locals call him Bussa, after a legendary figure in the island’s history who helped inspire a revolt against slavery in 1816. Lining the highway is a succession of roundabouts dedicated to notable politicians and great Barbadian cricketers like Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Everton Weekes and the first black captain of West Indies, Sir Frank Worrell. I wonder if the planners ever intended that this series of roundabouts on such a friendly island should illustrate just how closely the Caribbean’s unhappy history is associated with cricket. Little surprise, then, that some opponents of the mighty West Indies sides in the 1970s and 80s believed that seeking revenge for the past lay behind the hostility of the most feared battery of fast bowlers there has ever been – that it was racially motivated, in other words. The West Indian players of the time deny this absolutely, pointing out that they were as driven and aggressive when they played against India and Pakistan, for example, as they were against England or Australia. Geoffrey Boycott, who stood in their way many times as an opening batsman, states categorically that he never heard a racist comment, or felt racially intimidated. Nevertheless, I am sure they gained a lot of motivation from their identity and great pride from being the first predominantly Afro-Caribbean team to sit on top of the world, relishing the new-found respect that came with it.

When the British claimed South Africa from the Dutch in 1806, they discovered a colony that was already established strictly along racial lines. The abolition of slavery in 1834 proved to be the final straw for the Boer settlers, who, in their frustration at British rule, began their migration inland from the Cape on what became known as the Great Trek. They established Afrikaner strongholds, which developed into Boer republics in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, thus setting out the background for the two Boer Wars against the British in the late nineteenth century. During the second (1899–1902) an estimated twenty-eight thousand Boers – many of them women and children – died in appalling conditions in concentration camps set up by the British, whose victory established the Union of South Africa, a dominion of the British Empire. In 1931 it gained its independence from Britain.

With racial segregation already implemented to some degree under colonial rule, independence enabled stricter laws to be imposed by the National Party, culminating in the establishment of apartheid in 1948 and the classification of people into four racial groups (‘native’, ‘white’, ‘coloured’ and ‘Asian’). Every part of everyday life was affected by apartheid, including cricket. The whites had their own cricket board, the South African Cricket Association (SACA), and only white players could represent South Africa. Non-whites were welcome to watch, but had to do so in segregated parts of the cricket grounds. Despite South Africa’s opposition in those days being exclusively from England, Australia and New Zealand (i.e. white), the non-white spectators usually vented their feelings by supporting the visitors. The D’Oliveira affair of 1968 (discussed at length later in this chapter) highlighted the true horror of apartheid to the world. The sporting isolation of South Africa contributed strongly to the dismantling of that abhorrent political system, and cricket played a leading role.

Over the border, in what is now Zimbabwe, the British formed the colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1895. This became simply Rhodesia when the then Prime Minister Ian Smith declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965. The Republic of Rhodesia was proclaimed in 1970 but was recognized only by its neighbour South Africa until full independence from Britain was gained after years of civil war, known as the Bush War, and Zimbabwe was formed in 1980. Zimbabwe appeared in the 1983 Cricket World Cup, famously beating Australia by 13 runs at Trent Bridge, and played its first Test match in 1992.

The Indian subcontinent was inextricably linked with the British Empire for centuries. Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, was ruled by the British from 1815, when once again they ousted the Dutch, and then imported up to a million Tamils from southern India to work in the tea and coffee plantations for which Sri Lanka is famous. The local Buddhist and Sinhalese population believed that their British rulers showed favouritism towards the Tamil immigrants, creating a schism between the communities. Caused directly by colonialism, this produced a long-running conflict and a civil war lasting twenty-five years that has cost an estimated hundred thousand lives and led to accusations of human-rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were apparently wiped out in 2009.

If anyone still harbours any doubts about the domination of the British Empire, then India, which had to be split into three countries, provides the most obvious and richest legacy. Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) are the direct results of colonialism, having been formed by the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics. The plan approved by the British government in 1947 drew lines and frontiers where none previously existed to establish the Islamic state of Pakistan in order to enable the Hindus to live separately from the minority Muslims, and vice versa, if they chose to do so. Pakistan was divided into two, East and West, with the small matter of a thousand miles of Indian mainland between them. Estimates vary as to how many lost their lives as 14.5 million people rushed to relocate in their preferred country, but it is accepted that up to one million perished. Tensions dramatically escalated between the two religions, which had never been so obviously separated before, and such was the hostility and mistrust that relations between India and Pakistan have been plagued ever since. Ownership of Kashmir remains hotly disputed by India and Pakistan, but Bangladesh broke free from Pakistan after the brutal Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. This conflict produced the highest number of prisoners of war since the Second World War, and an estimated ten million refugees flooded the eastern states of India.

British interest in India began with the traders dealing primarily in tea, cotton, silk and opium who set sail in 1601 to form the East India Company. The Dutch and Portuguese had already established trading posts in Eastern India and hostilities between the three were commonplace, but as Britain gained supremacy against the Europeans – including the French, who were late arrivals in that part of the world – relations with the suppressed locals were often fractious. The best known of the early uprisings occurred in June 1756 when the Nawab of Bengal attacked and took the British fort in Calcutta. Those British who were captured by the Nawab’s forces were placed in a dungeon measuring 14 ft by 18 ft, which became known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. In the stifling summer heat, it is claimed 123 of the 146 prisoners died as a result of suffocation, crushing or heat stroke. Major-General Robert Clive attacked the Nawab’s camp in February 1757 and the victory that followed resulted in the Nawab surrendering control of Calcutta back to the British. The Battle of Plassey followed in June and produced another victory for Clive over the Nawab, whose troops had failed to protect their gunpowder against the rain and were powerless to fight back. This established British military supremacy in Bengal and finally over Northern India as well, and Clive, by now known as Clive of India, returned to London as a legendary figure – and a very wealthy one too.

One hundred years later there was a mutiny among the sepoys – the Indian members of the British East India Company’s army – that quickly spread to most of Northern India, and became known as the Indian Rebellion. The British held out under siege for six months in the city of Lucknow, where more than three thousand men, women and children gathered in the Regency Compound; only one thousand survived. Fifty miles down the road, hundreds more lost their lives in the Siege of Cawnpore (now Kanpur) and the subsequent Bibighar Massacre after an offer of safe passage was reneged upon. I have visited the beautifully maintained Kanpur Memorial Church (originally called All Souls Cathedral), with its many monuments and graves for the British who died there, and recall seeing many headstones bearing the inscription ‘murdered by mutineers’.

The uprising, which has also been described as India’s First War of Independence, was finally put down in Gwalior the following year, but the rebellion led directly to the dissolution of the East India Company. Back home in London, it was decided that British rule of India had to become much more strictly administered and controlled. The army was reorganized, and the financial system restructured. In 1858, British Crown rule – the British Raj – was established and would last until 1947.

The earliest record of cricket being played anywhere on the subcontinent is of a game played by British sailors in Cambay, near Baroda, in 1721. There is some uncertainty about the precise formation of the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, but it was certainly in existence in 1792. Following the definitive battle between the British and Tipu Sultan, the Ruler of Mysore, which strengthened the British grip on southern India, another cricket club was founded at Seringapatam in 1799. The spread of cricket throughout the subcontinent had begun.

In those early days, the locals clearly only made up the numbers and there was the feeling that if you played cricket alongside the British, you might receive favourable treatment from them. But as their fascination for cricket developed rapidly, the Indian players also became rather good at it, and were more than capable of holding their own. A game between Madras and Calcutta in 1864 lays claim to being the first first-class match played on the subcontinent, but the most significant development was the founding of the Bombay Presidency Match in 1877, between the European players of the Bombay Gymkhana and the Parsees of the Zoroastrian Cricket Club. This grand occasion was granted first-class status in 1892 and a mark of how Indian cricket had evolved so quickly was the victory that year by the local Parsees over the Europeans. In 1906, the Hindus of Bombay joined the now triangular tournament. In their ranks was the left-arm spinner, Palwankar Baloo, a man whose life story provides a fascinating insight into how the role of cricket was by now expanding in Indian society.

Baloo was born in 1876 into the Dalit population, which according to the Hindu caste system meant that he was one of the lowest of the low, an ‘untouchable’. His first job was tending the cricket pitch at a club run by the Parsees in Poona (Pune), where he also bowled occasionally to the members. At the age of 17 he moved to the predominantly European Pune Cricket Club, where he earned four rupees a month rolling the pitch and preparing the practice facilities. Again, he bowled to the members and, encouraged by the captain, J. G. Greig, quickly developed into a fine spinner. However, because of his background, Baloo was never allowed to bat.

When a Hindu club challenged the Europeans to a match, and with Baloo clearly good enough for selection, his lowly status led to several members of the Hindu team refusing to play alongside him. But a compromise was reached. On the field, Baloo was treated as an equal to every other cricketer in the match. However, during the intervals, he was segregated to the extent that while lunch was taken inside the pavilion, Baloo had to sit outside and eat alone.

As time passed, and Baloo’s reputation grew, he was permitted to congregate with his team-mates off the field as well as on it, and when an outbreak of the plague encouraged Baloo to move to Bombay in 1896, he played for the Army. Despite further protests from members of the higher castes, Baloo also represented the Hindu Gymkhana Club and played in the famous Presidency matches of 1906 and 1907 between the Europeans and the Hindus, which were comfortably won by the Hindus by 109 runs and 238 runs respectively. These were highly significant victories not merely in cricketing terms, but particularly in the wider political sense, being portrayed in many quarters as a victory for the locals against the colonialists.

Baloo toured England in 1911 and was the outstanding player, taking 114 wickets at an average of 19 each, on what was otherwise an unsuccessful trip for the Indians. Despite regularly playing in what became (in 1912, through the addition of the Muslims) the Bombay Quadrangular tournament between 1912 and 1919, he was never allowed to become captain of the Hindu team, despite mounting pressure for him to do so. He attained the status of vice-captain in 1920 and, in a sign of the times (Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom campaign was beginning to gather pace), the captain of the Hindu Gymkhana, M. D. Pai, who, being a Brahmin, was a member of the highest caste, deliberately left the field on frequent occasions, enabling Baloo to lead the team in his absence. This was surely the first time a lowly Dalit was able to command those above his station.

As a footnote, Baloo became politically active in later life, twice losing elections as he continued his personal fight against the segregation of the Indian classes. Although he had become a comparatively influential figure, it is as the very first in India’s proud tradition of beguiling spin bowlers that Palwankar Baloo is best remembered.

Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji enjoyed as different a background from Baloo as it is possible to imagine. An Indian prince who was educated at Cambridge University, Ranji overcame racial taboo to play fifteen Tests for England between 1896 and 1902 before India was admitted to international cricket. He scored 62 and 154 not out on his début against Australia, and he became synonymous with a new range of back-foot, wristy strokes such as the late cut and leg glance. This innovation combined with great flair earned him recognition among the very best batsmen there have ever been. In 1904 he returned to India to reclaim his seat as the Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar and died there in 1933, the year after India was granted Test status.

It is easy to imagine how a young child reading the history books in a school in any of the countries that were colonized could develop a deep-seated resentment of the British. At the very least, it would be very easy for a skilled orator or motivator to press the right nationalistic buttons and, in the cricketing context, produce a team that desperately wants to put one over its former colonial masters. But there is more to this in that local rivalries and tensions have also been created by colonialism and are played out on cricket fields around the world. This is especially the case whenever India meets Pakistan – fanatical spectators have been known to commit suicide following their team’s defeat. And there is nothing that New Zealanders enjoy more than their all-too-rare successes over Australia – although this has more to do with the relative size of the two countries than anything else. It might be argued that these historical rifts have given international cricket matches an extra edge, but it is an unfortunate way of achieving sporting competition. This helps to explain the deep-rooted rivalry that is still keenly felt today. The influence of the British Empire created local conflicts where none had previously existed, and while that has helped to establish the intense rivalry between India and Pakistan, for example, the strong sense of injustice that still lies only fractionally beneath the surface means that nothing motivates England’s opponents more than the desire to beat their old colonial master. It is no coincidence, therefore, that most of the really serious incidents in cricket’s history have involved England.

While the British colonists were busy acting as cricketing crusaders, taking the game with them all around the world, they were also very keen to ensure that the ‘gentlemen’s game’ was always played to what they believed were their own exacting standards of sportsmanship. Cricket has always been synonymous with fair play, giving rise to that well-known expression: ‘It’s not cricket.’ The requirement of everyone to play within the spirit of the game is enshrined in the Laws of cricket, and there is a very strong emphasis on respecting one’s opponents and always accepting the umpire’s decision. It was designed to be a genteel and aesthetically pleasing sport, but also one that requires bravery and helps to develop character in its younger participants.

Given the history between the two countries, it is perhaps no surprise that England and Australia became embroiled in cricket’s first serious controversy. Test matches between the two always have an extra edge to them, dating back to the very first encounter in 1877, with Australia’s past as a former penal colony providing the background to the competitiveness on the field. Usually this is little more than colourful banter, or ‘sledging’ as the Australians call it, but on the Ashes tour of 1932–3 the hostility was central to the way the Tests were played. That series will forever be known as the Bodyline series.

Cricket matches between Australia and England have been defined by their uncompromising and overtly competitive nature, born out of their shared colonial history and compounded by the wish on the part of most Australians to see themselves viewed as every bit the equal of the mother country. This may have been the historical context, but the seeds of arguably the greatest controversy the game has ever witnessed lay in the vastly differing backgrounds of the two central protagonists: one a patrician Englishman whose philosophy of winning at all costs would shake the game to its very foundations and, in so doing, impact severely on the relations between the two countries; the other an Australian cricketing genius whose achievements while touring England in 1930 meant that finding a strategy to neutralize his sublime run-scoring prowess would be vital if England were to stand any chance of regaining the Ashes.

Douglas Robert Jardine was a son of the British Empire. Born to Scottish parents in Bombay in 1900, cricket was an intrinsic part of his upbringing. His father, Malcom Jardine, had played first-class cricket for Oxford University and Middlesex before becoming a successful barrister in India.

As was typical of the time, at the age of 9, Douglas was sent from India to live with his mother’s sister in St Andrews in Scotland from where he was to be educated at boarding schools in England. By the age of 12 he was captaining his school XI to an unbeaten record in his final year. Already the self-belief, some would say an unwillingness to listen to the counsel and advice of others, was showing itself as Jardine repeatedly disagreed with his school cricket coach about his batting method.

While the world descended into the maelstrom of the First World War, a 14-year-old Jardine entered Winchester College, one of England’s oldest and finest public schools. Life at the school was arduous, the prevailing ethos austere, the discipline bordering on the harsh. Sport was an important part of the curriculum, a curriculum designed to prepare the boys for a life of governance and, in many cases, future military duty with every prospect of seeing war first hand. Jardine entered the school with a reputation as a cricketer and soon established himself as an all-round sportsman, playing football, rackets and Winchester College football (a rugby-union-like game with a peculiar set of rules only understood and esteemed by Wykehamists), but it was for cricket that Jardine earned renown. He was in the First XI within three years and remained there until his last year, when he captained the side and topped the batting averages. With him leading the side and scoring 89, Jardine’s Winchester College beat Eton College in 1919 – the first time in twelve years Winchester had gained the upper hand. Later in life and after retiring from cricket, Jardine would say that the 89 he scored on a sunny afternoon as his school days came to an end and the world put itself to rights after unimaginable horror was his favourite innings.

Jardine entered Oxford University in late 1919 and won his Blue initially for real tennis. The following year he made his first-class début as an opening batsman, winning his cricketing Blue. In 1921 Jardine encountered an Australian touring side for the first time when Oxford played Warwick Armstrong’s side, who had been dominating the season up until that point. Jardine battled to 96 to save the match but was unable to reach his century before the game ended. While contemporary reports suggest the Australians were keen to help Jardine reach the landmark (his 96 not out was the highest score by any player against the Australians so far on the tour), offering some particularly soft bowling, it was not to be. It has been suggested that the request by the Australians to have the game reduced to two days from the planned three in order that they might have a rest day between matches combined with alleged on-field sarcasm by Armstrong directed at Jardine’s slow progress sowed the seeds of what would be a lifelong dislike, bordering on hatred, for Australia and Australians by Jardine.

The innings against Australia brought Jardine to the notice of the England selectors and the influential Pelham ‘Plum’ Warner, and it was thought he might have been selected to play for England in the forthcoming series, but while remaining in contention for a place for some time, he was not selected. Jardine now joined Surrey, replacing the injured Jack Hobbs as opening bat before dropping down the order to number five. What became increasingly clear was that Jardine was a batsman of caution, defensively minded, who came into his own when the pressure to occupy the crease was at a premium.

The following season was largely lost to injury. In 1923, his last year at Oxford, he returned to cricket but was not appointed captain of the side and it has been suggested that his austere unfriendly manner was the reason he was denied the honour, although his absence through injury the previous season may have been a more likely reason. During a match later in the season, Jardine deliberately used his pads to defend his wicket. While within the rules, it was widely seen and reported in the newspapers as being against the spirit of the game. Jardine’s biographers have noted that it was this adverse criticism that led to his deep-seated hostility to the press thereafter, something he would retain for the rest of his life.

After Oxford Jardine began to train as a solicitor while playing for Surrey as an amateur. In 1924 he was appointed vice-captain to Percy Fender. As will be discussed elsewhere, captaincy of a county side was the prerogative of the amateurs and although the Surrey side of the day featured Jack Hobbs, still it was Jardine who was seen as the rightful appointee. In the 1927 season Jardine scored 1,002 runs at an average of 91.09 and was named by Wisden as one of their five cricketers of the year. By the end of the 1928 season, when he made his Test début against West Indies, selection for the forthcoming winter tour to Australia was seen as a certainty.

Australia’s ageing post-war team had broken up in 1926 and England would be facing an inexperienced side led by Jack Ryder. There is no doubt Jardine’s first tour of Australia was a success. He began with three consecutive centuries. But already the Australian crowds had begun barracking him for slow scoring and less than agile fielding. Nevertheless, Donald Bradman was full of praise, calling Jardine’s third century one of the finest exhibitions of stroke play he had witnessed. The Australian crowds, however, took an active dislike to, of all things, Jardine’s choice of headwear.

Oxford University traditionally awarded a Harlequin cap to those who played good cricket. Former Oxford and Cambridge men often wore these caps while batting, in England at least, but it was less usual to wear them while fielding, and, when combined with Jardine’s aloof, angular and unresponsive manner, it inflamed the essentially decent but egalitarian nature of the Australian crowd, whose mood descended from good-natured barracking to outright hostility and abuse. Journalist and Test cricketer Jack Fingleton, who would have an important but disputed role during the Bodyline series, would say afterwards that Jardine had ample opportunity to win over the Australian crowds by the simple gestures of a self-deprecating smile and the odd joke at his own expense. The crowd was knowledgeable and had little doubt about Jardine’s capability as a batsman, but Australians like their sportsmen to be human and free of condescension – characteristics far from being evident in Jardine’s manner and bearing.

Jardine’s good form with the bat continued and his resolute crease-occupying focus played a vital role as England secured victories in the first two Tests. In the Third Test England were left with the difficult task of scoring 332 runs to win on a rain-damaged wicket. In one of their most famous partnerships, Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe put on 105. Hobbs had sent a message to the dressing room saying Jardine should be the next man in even though he was due to bat lower down the order. When Hobbs was dismissed Jardine came in and, despite finding batting extremely difficult, saw out the remainder of the day. England went on to take an unlikely win and many commentators said that only Jardine could have coped with the difficult conditions.

In Tasmania Jardine posted his highest first-class score of 214. England won the Fourth Test, Jardine and Hammond putting on the then highest third-wicket partnership in Test history of 262.

Australia won the final Test in Melbourne during which Jardine was used, unsuccessfully, as an opener replacing the injured Sutcliffe. After Jardine had completed his second innings (out for a first-ball duck), he immediately crossed Australia to catch a boat to India for a holiday. This was the era of timeless Tests, and although this was the fifth day, there remained three days of play. Whether his departure was planned or his tolerance of Australia and Australians had finally reached breaking point remains unclear to this day. Nevertheless, the mutual antipathy had been firmly established and would only grow over the next four years, culminating in the events of the 1932–3 series.

The Ashes series of 1928–9 also saw the Test début of a player who would go on to rewrite the record books, find cricketing immortality and unintentionally ensure that forever after Douglas Jardine would be remembered as an unconscionable villain and would-be destroyer of the great game.

When Donald Bradman was two and half years old, his parents moved the family 260 km east from his birthplace, Cootamundra, New South Wales, to the small town of Bowral, where as a schoolboy he would spend countless hours hitting a golf ball with a cricket stump against the curved wall of a water tank, learning to anticipate its unpredictable rebound. By the age of 12 he had scored his first century and at 13 he stepped into the local Bowral team captained by his uncle when they were a player short, scoring 37 and 29 not out in his two innings. He would become a regular for the side, making prodigious scores in local competitions. Bradman’s meteoric rise to the heights of the game was under way.

By 1926, an ageing Australian national side was in decline and after England had won the Ashes in the summer, a number of Australia’s players retired. Bradman’s prolific scoring for Bowral had come to the attention of the New South Wales Cricket Association, who were eager to find new talent. Invited to a practice session in Sydney, Bradman was chosen for the Country Week tournament, where his performances were good enough for an invitation to play grade cricket for St George in Sydney during the 1926–7 season. The following season, at the age of 19, Bradman made his first-class début for NSW, replacing the unfit Archie Jackson at the Adelaide Oval and scoring a century.

In 1928 England would be visiting Australia to defend the Ashes. Against England in early touring matches Bradman scored 87 and 132, both not out, and was picked for the First Test at Brisbane. As is the usual way of things, Euripides had it right when he said, ‘Those whom God wishes to destroy, He first makes mad.’ In only his tenth first-class match, Bradman’s Test début was a salutary lesson as Australia collapsed to 66 all out in their second innings, suffering a defeat by 675 runs – a record defeat that still stands today. Bradman was dropped for the Second Test.

Recalled for Melbourne, he scored 112 in the second innings, becoming the youngest player at the time to make a Test century. By the end of the season Bradman had amassed 1,690 first-class runs, averaging 93.88, and scored his first multiple century in Sheffield Shield cricket (340 not out against Victoria). The following year he would set a new world record for first-class cricket by scoring 452 not out against Queensland at the SCG. The gods of cricket had now changed their minds, shining brightly on their young protégé – and would do so for the next twenty years.

England were favourites to retain the Ashes in 1930, but the true measure of Bradman’s genius was yet to register with England’s supporters. He scored 236 at Worcester in the opening match and by the end of May had scored 1,000 first-class runs, the first Australian to achieve this feat. He scored a century in the First Test, but Australia lost the game. Then came the Second Test at Lord’s. Bradman’s contribution of 254 to a first-innings total of 729 ensured a series-levelling win for Australia.

For England things would only get worse as the Third Test at Leeds got under way on a hot day in July. On the first day Bradman scored a century before lunch. He added a second between lunch and tea, and was 309 not out at the close. He remains the only Test player in history to score 300 in a single day. His eventual tally of 334 set another world record. Poor weather saved England’s blushes and the match was drawn. The Fourth Test was also a weather-affected draw.

The Fifth and final deciding Test would be played at the Oval. The weather still had its part to play as England posted a first-innings score of 405, taking three rain-interrupted days to get there. Bradman, batting in his customary number three position, added another double century, reaching 232 before being caught behind the stumps by George Duckworth off Harold Larwood. Bradman and Bill Ponsford (110) ensured that Australia had secured a 290-run lead.

However, the conditions and Larwood’s fast, short-pitched bowling on a lively rain-affected pitch and Bradman’s apparent difficulties were what caught the eye of certain interested spectators. A number of players and journalists thought they detected a distinct unease in Bradman as he struggled with fast, rising deliveries. Nothing could be done with this information now as England were soundly beaten by an innings and surrendered the Ashes.

It was the start of the modern age and Bradman’s innings had been caught on moving film. England would have a chance to regain the Ashes over the winter of 1932–3 but to do that they would have to find a way to conquer the greatest batsman the world had ever seen. Maybe the answer lay in the grainy black and white footage?

The story goes that Jardine, on seeing the film, cried out, ‘I’ve got it! He’s yellow!’ Percy Fender was also in receipt of letters from Australia that described how Australian batsmen were increasingly moving across their stumps towards the off in order to play the ball away to leg. Once the MCC had appointed Jardine captain of the 1932–3 tour to Australia, the possibility that Bradman might be exposed by short-pitched deliveries on the line of the leg stump took hold and a strategy to defeat him, and thus the Australians, was born.

The success of the tactic would rely on England fielding bowlers who could deliver balls with great venom and accuracy. A meeting with Nottinghamshire’s captain, Arthur Carr, and his two pacemen, Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, was arranged. Could they repeatedly bowl at leg stump and get the ball to rear up and into the batsman’s body? Both agreed they could and felt it might be an effective tactic. A cordon of close fielders would be set on the leg side. The facing batsman would have to choose between ducking, being hit, fending the ball off or executing a hook shot. The last two options are risky with fielders set for catches close to the wicket and deep on the boundary. Fast-pitched balls on the line of leg would also ensure scoring was kept to a minimum.

There was nothing as radical in this as the eventual outcry would suggest. Leg theory had been utilized in the county game and in Australia in previous seasons, although not at the same intensity, and the main criticism it drew was that it always proved an unedifying spectacle for the watching crowds.

Larwood and Voce set about practising Jardine’s plan during the remainder of the 1932 season. On 17 September 1932 the MCC team boarded the Orient liner Orontes at Tilbury and set sail for the Australian port of Fremantle.

Their arrival in Western Australia was a good-natured affair; they were greeted by a large crowd and the crew of Australian cruiser Canberra lined the side and sang ‘For They Are Jolly Good Fellows’.

A press conference with the manager of the MCC side, Pelham ‘Plum’ Warner, was arranged. Warner had led two tours to Australia before the First World War and had a deep respect and liking for the country and its people. In addition to which few men have had such a profound love for the great game and its central ethos of fair play as Warner. On the face of it, he was the ideal spokesman for the team and the perfect team manager. But even now the central issues that would dog the series arose in the press conference.

At the time there was a real danger that the player whom every Australian wanted to see and who was expected to carry all before him would be absent from the series. Bradman was in dispute with the Australian Board of Control after he had entered into a contract with the Sydney Sun to write for them during the forthcoming series, a practice the Board of Control had banned all players selected for Test duty from doing. Bradman was adamant that he had signed a contract and was duty-bound to honour it. For a while it looked as if Hamlet would be without its prince. Warner refused to comment on that issue but a follow-up question was rather more prescient. Asked about the recent and excessive use of ‘bump balls’ by Bill Bowes, Warner played it straight back: ‘Bowes is a splendid bowler and have not fast bowlers bumped the ball before?’

The first sight Australians had of fast leg theory (the term ‘body-line’ was yet to be employed) was during a warm-up game in Melbourne in late November. The England side was led by Jardine’s deputy, Bob Wyatt, who deployed the full leg-side tactic for the first time on the tour. Woodfull resorted to unorthodox shotmaking with what looked liked an overhead tennis smash action and England were convinced their tactics were sound, but the crowd’s vocal displeasure was a harbinger of what was to follow.

Australia lost badly by ten wickets in the First Test at Sydney. Although Bradman’s dispute with the Board of Control had been resolved, he was missing through illness. Larwood roared in, taking ten wickets in the match. Only an innings by Stan McCabe, who stood resolute hooking and pulling with scant regard for his personal safety, salvaged Australia’s pride.

The Melbourne Test began with questions about who would captain Australia. Woodfull’s captaincy was confirmed only minutes before the game, delaying the toss; it has been suggested that the Board of Control were considering replacing him in the light of his steadfast refusal to retaliate by allowing Australian bowlers to bowl in an intimidatory manner. Vice-captain Richardson had advocated overt retaliation, but Woodfull had immediately responded by saying, ‘There is no way I will be influenced to adopt such tactics which bring such discredit to the game.’

In a low-scoring match, Bradman was dismissed on the opening day for a duck (not to a bodyline ball, it should be noted) to the shock and dismay of the Melbourne crowd, while Jardine was openly exultant at his nemesis’s demise. However, Bradman would score 103 not out in Australia’s second-innings score of 191, ensuring that the Australians beat England handsomely by 111 runs. Many jubilant Australians thought they had found the tactics to overcome the hostility of the English attack, but it would prove to be Bradman’s only century of the series and Larwood, in particular, had been badly hampered by a slow pitch (and an injury).

The series moved on to Adelaide, to perhaps the most beautiful cricket ground in the world, which was shortly to witness scenes that would reverberate all the way back to Lord’s – and whose aftershocks can, arguably, still be felt today.

On a hot 14 January 1933 a record crowd of nearly fifty-one thousand packed into the ground. It was the second day of the Test and England’s innings closed with 341 runs on the board, which represented a good recovery after a particularly poor start.

After Australian opener Jack Fingleton was dismissed by Gubby Allen for a duck, Bradman joined Woodfull at the crease. Larwood had discovered that in the conditions he was able to swing the ball into Woodfull, rather than moving it away, as was usual when he bowled at right-handers. In the third over of the innings, Larwood’s sixth ball, short and on the line of middle stump, hit Woodfull over the heart. He staggered away, clutching his chest. The England players gathered around in sympathy, but Jardine’s clearly enunciated, ‘Well bowled, Harold!’ – a remark he later claimed was solely designed to unnerve Bradman – horrified Woodfull and dismayed many who heard it. The spirit of the game was in severe danger of being compromised.

Woodfull recovered and the match resumed. As soon as it was his turn to face Larwood again, there was a break while the field was adjusted. It has remained unclear to this day whether Jardine or Larwood initiated the change, but in any event, the infamous leg-side field was now set. The crowd were deeply antagonized – angrier even than when Woodfull had been hit. They inevitably saw this deliberate use of fast leg theory, against a player who had received such a serious blow, as hitting a man when he was down and viewed it as completely unsportsmanlike. The catcalls and jeering became so pronounced that the England players felt physically threatened and thought the police presence badly insufficient to protect them if the crowd decided to riot and spill onto the playing field.

Larwood soon knocked the bat out of Woodfull’s hands and, although clearly unsettled (he would be hit several more times), he would go on to score 22 before falling to Allen. Bradman had departed for just 8. Bill Ponsford had joined his Victoria state captain and would also be repeatedly hit on his back and shoulders as he turned away in an attempt to shield his bat to avoid giving up catches.

Later that day, there occurred the fateful visit by the England manager, Pelham Warner, to the Australians’ dressing room, where he was rebuffed by Woodfull with perhaps the most famous quote in cricket: ‘I don’t want to see you, Mr Warner. There are two teams out there; one is trying to play cricket and the other is not.’ Adding, ‘This game is too good to be spoilt. It’s time some people got out of it.’ Warner, it was reported, was physically shaken by the admonishment and was seen hurrying away close to tears.

On the third day, Bert Oldfield was hit a sickening blow on the head that caused a fracture – although, again, the ball was a legitimate non-bodyline delivery that he top-edged. Oldfield later admitted that it was a mistake entirely of his own making; nevertheless, the crowd was yet again incensed.

On the fifth day it would be the ill-thought reaction of the Australian Board of Control – who in deciding to send a cable to the MCC used the injudicious word ‘unsportsmanlike’ – that would escalate the situation from an unseemly argument about the rights and wrongs of on-field sporting tactics to an all-out diplomatic row that, at its peak, threatened to undermine the relations between what had been the happiest of colonial brotherhoods. (The entire exchange of cables can be read from page 62.)

The match in Adelaide eventually saw Australia needing to score an impossible 532 in their second innings for victory. Bradman, employing entirely unorthodox methods, was eventually bowled for 66, while the ever stoic and brave Woodfull would carry his bat for an unbeaten 73 as wickets fell all around him; Australia were eventually all out for 193, and perhaps the most unpleasant and bitter-tasting Test match came to an inglorious close.

The response of the MCC – who it must be said in their defence had, at the time, no means at their disposal of truly comprehending what was happening on the field of play nor a way of gauging the level of anger in the stands and among Australians in general – was, along with that of the British public, to take considerable umbrage at the term ‘unsportsmanlike’ (an accusation that went right to the very heart of how Britain’s colonial masters, let alone those in charge of the game at the headquarters of cricket, viewed themselves). In short order, a number of high horses were brought in to be climbed upon by the MCC committee members.

Jardine – as one would expect of a true son of the Empire and a man whose deep dislike of all things Australian was already well established – was sufficiently outraged by the temerity of the Australians, of their complaints and the unwarranted accusation of an England team behaving in anything other than a sporting manner, that he, and by extension the rest of the England team, promptly threatened to pull out of the remaining two Tests unless the word ‘unsportsmanlike’ was withdrawn. In London, the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, J. H. Thomas, became embroiled, warning that the present impasse would have a significant impact on trade between the nations. It would take the intervention of Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons – who made it clear to the Australian Board of Control just how serious the economic ramifications would be for their young nation if Britain started boycotting Australian goods, something that was being called for back home – for the offending words to be rescinded. The allegation of unsportsmanlike behaviour was withdrawn and the tour would continue.

Jardine, as was to be expected, was unrepentant, and during the remaining two Tests would continue to employ fast leg theory, now routinely described by the media as ‘bodyline’ (it is widely believed that Melbourne and Sydney journalist Hugh Buggy coined the phrase in a telegraph office). However, slower pitches largely negated its effectiveness and although Australian batsmen continued to be hit, none sustained serious injury. England finished by winning the series 4–1.

Bodyline would still be seen in England in 1933, most notably at Nottinghamshire, who had bodyline’s arch-practitioners, Voce and Larwood, on their playing staff. Wisden would comment that ‘those watching it for the first time must have come to the conclusion that, while strictly within the law, it was not nice.’

In 1934 Australia would tour England with Bill Woodfull once more at the helm. Jardine had retired from international cricket and new captain Bob Wyatt agreed that bodyline tactics would not be used. However, the Australians felt that this was sometimes more honoured in the breach than the observance. In the opening Test at Trent Bridge, Voce bowled fast towards leg in fading light, causing an angered Woodfull to threaten the authorities that, if Voce repeated the tactic the following day, he and his team would return to London and Australia would not visit England again.

The MCC had hoped that the spirit of the game would prevail and that captains would henceforth ensure that their bowlers understood that the recent MCC resolution citing fast leg theory as being against the spirit of the game would be sufficient to dictate the manner in which the game would be played from now on. Human nature being what it is, a new law was ultimately needed and ‘direct attack’ bowling was formally outlawed; it would be up to the umpires to identify it and to call a halt when bowlers stepped over the line. Twenty years later, it became illegal to have more than two leg-side fielders behind square of the wicket. Introduced to combat negative bowling at leg stump by spinners and in-swing bowlers, this effectively ruled out bodyline field settings.

If Bodyline gave cricket’s administrators an early indication of just how inextricably tangled politics and the noble game can quickly become, an even more serious incident erupted thirty-five years later, this time involving South Africa, whose racist political system was beginning to stir public conscience around the world.

At the centre of this particular drama was Basil D’Oliveira, a South African who was classified by the apartheid regime as ‘Cape coloured’, or of mixed race, and therefore prohibited from participating in any sport alongside white South Africans. As a youngster he lived for cricket (and football) and used to climb the trees outside the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town to watch the cricket. Through a combination of outrageous talent and a burning desire to succeed, D’Oliveira became captain of the non-white South African cricket team – and also played football for the non-white national team – but he became increasingly frustrated at the political barrier that prevented him from representing his country at the highest level. Left with no alternative, D’Oliveira decided to emigrate to England, helped to no small extent by the cricket writer and broadcaster, John Arlott, to whom D’Oliveira had written in 1958, asking for help in finding a role as a professional in one of England’s leagues. This unlikely connection was forged through D’Oliveira listening to Arlott’s legendary radio commentary. ‘His voice and the words he spoke convinced me he was a nice, compassionate man,’ he said.

Arlott managed to secure D’Oliveira a contract for the summer of 1960 with Middleton Cricket Club in the Central Lancashire League. He subsequently topped the League’s batting averages that season, arousing the interest of Worcestershire County Cricket Club, for whom he first appeared in first-class cricket in 1964. Throughout, D’Oliveira maintained that he had been born in 1934, which by most people’s reckoning took at least three years off his true age. Indeed, his most likely date of birth was 4 October 1931, but D’Oliveira knew that he would be considered dangerously past his sell-by date had he revealed to Worcestershire that he was approaching 33 when he made his début, rather than 29, and that he would surely have had little chance of making his début for England against West Indies in 1966 had the selectors known he was in his thirty-fifth year. This was just another intriguing subplot in the life of a man whose name will always be linked with the eventual downfall of apartheid.

D’Oliveira’s Test career began promisingly, being run out for 27 in his first innings and picking up a couple of wickets with his gentle swing bowling, which was to become surprisingly successful at breaking stubborn partnerships. He scored two half-centuries in his second Test, which England lost, and a battling 88 in his third, at Headingley, where West Indies recorded an even more emphatic victory, this time by an innings and 55 runs, to set up their 3–1 series victory. D’Oliveira’s first century for England came the following June in the First Test against India at Headingley. A further 81 not out against Pakistan later that summer helped him to become one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the year for 1967, and these performances took him to West Indies for the winter tour.

More than five thousand miles away in Pretoria, the South African authorities had been monitoring D’Oliveira’s development and knew they had a problem. England, travelling under the auspices of MCC in those days, were due to tour South Africa the following winter and the interior minister, Pieter le Roux, had already warned MCC that D’Oliveira would not be allowed into South Africa if he were chosen in the squad.

In the event, the West Indies tour did not go well for D’Oliveira either on or off the field. He played in all five Tests but passed fifty only once and, on his first tour, it soon became clear to his team-mates that Dolly could become quite fiery when he had consumed a drink or two. There were further political developments, too, with the former MCC president Lord Cobham assuring the South Africans that MCC would do everything in its power to ensure that the winter’s tour went ahead, and the pressure was ratcheted up a notch when John Vorster, the prime minister of South Africa, warned that the tour would be cancelled if D’Oliveira were selected.

Despite his indifferent form, D’Oliveira was selected for the first Ashes Test of 1968, and although Australia won the match, he top-scored in the second innings with an unbeaten 87. It was when he was replaced by Colin Milburn for the following Test, to make way for a third fast bowler, that the first whiff of suspicion of a possible political intervention was detected. MCC secretary Billy Griffith contacted D’Oliveira and urged him to rule himself out of the South Africa tour. Griffith also suggested, absurdly, that D’Oliveira might make himself available for South Africa instead. In July, with D’Oliveira now out of the England team, MCC approached thirty players to check their availability for the tour – but not D’Oliveira.

Although the Ashes were already lost, England needed to win the Fifth and final Test against Australia to draw the series. Roger Prideaux, who had scored 64 in the first innings of the previous Test at Headingley, was forced out of the match through injury and D’Oliveira was called up. However, he was the only player not to be asked on the eve of the game by Doug Insole, the chairman of selectors, to declare his availability for the tour to South Africa.

The Oval Test of 1968 was a remarkable game of cricket in its own right. England set Australia 352 to win and, just before lunch on the final day, Australia were heading towards defeat at 85 for five when a torrential storm flooded the ground. The sun reappeared shortly afterwards and the groundstaff – helped by volunteers from the crowd who were armed with brooms, buckets and towels – set about drying the outfield. At 4.45, play restarted with only seventy-five minutes remaining.

The captain, Colin Cowdrey, used all his frontline bowlers, but John Inverarity and Barry Jarman could not be shifted. With barely forty minutes before stumps, Cowdrey turned to the great partnership-breaker, D’Oliveira, who duly bowled Jarman in his second over. Derek Underwood, revelling in the rapidly drying conditions, finished the contest by taking the last four Australian wickets in twenty-seven balls with every fielder crouched around the bat.

All of that would surely be enough to make the match memorable. But this game had gained a significance of its own when, in England’s vital first innings, D’Oliveira scored 158 from 325 balls. It was not a flawless innings – far from it. In fact he was dropped four times. But this surely was a performance, played under great personal pressure, that demanded selection for the winter tour that followed. However, as we have already established, these were far from normal circumstances.

The selectors convened at eight o’clock on 27 August, the evening the Test finished, and the meeting closed at two o’clock the next morning. Of the five selectors – Insole, Cowdrey, Don Kenyon, Alec Bedser and Peter May – only Kenyon is reported to have supported D’Oliveira’s selection. Curiously, the minutes of the meeting went missing and the chairman, Insole, explained D’Oliveira’s exclusion by saying that he was regarded as a batsman rather than an all-rounder, and that there were better players in the squad.

These days, with Twitter and other social media, reaction to the news would have been fast and furious. Sporting issues rarely made the front pages back in 1968, when press coverage was rather more sedate and considered, but the Reverend David Sheppard, who played twenty-two Tests for England, stated that the MCC had made a ‘dreadful mistake’. This galvanized members of the private club to force a meeting on 6 September and the D’Oliveira affair gripped the nation, with the News of the World announcing that they would send D’Oliveira to South Africa to report on the Test series for them.

The next twist of fate involved Tom Cartwright, the softly spoken seam bowler who had been selected for the tour despite having a shoulder injury. He appeared to have proven his fitness by bowling ten overs in a county match for Warwickshire, only to withdraw from the touring squad two days later. D’Oliveira was named as his replacement.

The reaction from South Africa was immediate. Prime Minister Vorster declared that the MCC team had been selected along political lines and that his country would not welcome it. The South Africans pointed to the fact that D’Oliveira had first been considered as a batsman, but then replaced an injured bowler – although, with seven first-class hundreds to his name, Cartwright was more of an all-rounder than purely a bowler. ‘The MCC team is not the team of the MCC but of the anti-apartheid movement,’ Vorster announced deliberately in his harsh, guttural Afrikaans accent.

What is almost certainly true is that D’Oliveira was not the selectors’ first choice as replacement for Cartwright. There was his poor tour report from the previous winter to be considered, and Barry Knight and Ken Higgs were rated ahead of him as bowlers. However, both were unavailable through injury.

A week later, following a meeting at Lord’s, the MCC called off the tour, but at a meeting in January 1969 the Club voted in favour of inviting the South Africans to tour England in 1970. That was also abandoned when anti-apartheid protestors first disrupted the England rugby tour by the Springboks in November 1969, then threatened to do the same to the South African cricket tour the following summer. In May 1970, under great pressure from the Labour government, the tour was called off, and so began South Africa’s sporting isolation, which was to last until apartheid was dismantled in 1991. Basil D’Oliveira can never have expected to play such a central role in the creation of a new and free South Africa.

Television news coverage had much to do with the success of the anti-apartheid movement in 1969 and 1970. By showing the demonstrations and interviewing key protagonists like future government minister Peter Hain, the general public became much more aware of the political situation in South Africa, even if most of them did not approve of the disruption that was caused to the Springbok rugby tour. Just seven years later, the power of television was to tear cricket apart.

As is always the case with these things, there were a number of separate issues that combined to lead to the formation of World Series Cricket (WSC). The first was the increase in the popularity of television in Australia, where a burgeoning audience was treated to a plethora of imported programmes from the USA. Alarmed at this growing dependency, a campaign called ‘TV: Make it Australian’ led in 1973 to the imposition of a quota by the government. Crucially, the screening of Australian sport was allowed to be part of that quota, which immediately appealed to the cricket enthusiast Kerry Packer, an Australian media tycoon who, among other interests, owned the commercial television network, Channel Nine. Packer saw the opportunity to break with tradition and broadcast more sport, which up until then had been screened by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The attitude of the sports administrators at that time was very different from today, in that television was viewed then more as a threat to a live event than as a financial lifeline. It seems crazy now, but with Packer determined to buy the cricket rights at virtually any price, he was throwing money at the Australian Cricket Board, only for his offers to be rejected in favour of the ABC despite the corporation paying considerably less. His final attempt in 1976 was an offer of A$1.5 million over three years, which was eight times the previous contract with the ABC. Again, he was rebuffed.

The third strand was the widespread dissatisfaction of the world’s leading cricketers at the level of their pay. Indeed, their salaries were so low and their futures so insecure that persuasion did not even come into it when the offers came to sign up to a concept that was still very much in its embryonic form.

Packer’s plan was to enlist Australia’s best players and pitch them against a World XI. The matches would be staged in Australia and broadcast on Channel Nine. The former Australia captain, Ian Chappell, was engaged to approach the Australians, while Tony Greig, the captain of England, was recruited in the utmost secrecy by Packer effectively to act as an agent and approach the world’s leading players. By May 1977, Packer had clandestinely contracted thirteen of the seventeen members of the Australian cricket team that had just begun its tour of England.

The sensational news was leaked to Australian journalists on 9 May, and the cat was out of the bag. It was hardly surprising that most of the English hostility was aimed at Greig, whose strong South African background only added to the widespread accusation of treachery. Greig was quickly sacked as England captain, but retained his place in the team. The Australians were distracted and divided, and lost the Ashes series 3–0.

At this early stage, Packer still hoped to reach a compromise. He came to England in May to meet the authorities, who had another shock in store when it was revealed that Richie Benaud, the highly respected former Australia captain and television commentator, would be acting as an advisor to Packer. This was not merely an advisory role: Benaud also composed the rules and regulations for WSC. Benaud and Packer met the ICC, cricket’s governing body, at Lord’s on 23 June to discuss the proposed format of WSC. The meeting appeared to be going well until Packer displayed a rare misunderstanding of the situation by demanding that the ICC award him the rights to broadcast Australian cricket exclusively from 1979. This, of course, was not an ICC responsibility – the domestic television rights had to be negotiated with the ACB – and when this was relayed to him, Packer stormed out of the meeting and made this unequivocal statement: ‘Had I got those TV rights I was prepared to withdraw from the scene and leave the running of cricket to the board. I will take no steps now to help anyone. It’s every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’ If the game had any lingering doubts about the seriousness of Packer’s intentions, they certainly did not exist any longer.

When the ICC ruled in July that any player taking part in one of Packer’s matches would be banned from Test and first-class cricket, war was declared. This was, after all, a direct threat to the players and their ability to earn a living, so when Greig, Mike Procter and John Snow decided to challenge the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB) in the High Court, Packer put his financial clout behind them. This included audaciously hiring the most expensive QCs in England and paying them a retainer for the duration of the trial to prevent the TCCB from having access to their expertise. In November 1977 Justice Slade backed the players, ruling that any ban on the Packer players by the ICC and TCCB would be an unreasonable restraint of trade. The players knew that they would inevitably be banned from Test cricket, since countries are free to select whom they want, but they would at least now be free to continue to play county cricket.

Packer did not have everything his own way. World Series Cricket was banned from every cricket venue in Australia that had an affiliation with the board. Since poor pitches would make the whole venture look second rate – which was hardly the image Packer wanted to promote on Channel Nine – this was a serious concern. After all, he had now hired some of the fastest bowlers in the world, and the ‘Supertests’, as they were called, needed to be credible. The solution was drop-in pitches, which were cultivated off-site and then transported to the venue for the match and set in place. This enabled WSC to be played at VFL Park – an Australian rules football stadium in Melbourne’s suburbs – and, more unusually, Gloucester Park in Perth, which is a stone’s throw from the WACA but is a horse trotting track. Drop-in pitches have become more popular since Packer pioneered the concept, particularly in New Zealand, and they are just one of the many legacies of WSC. Another is the protective equipment that we take for granted these days. Because the early strips were still at an experimental stage, the batsmen were uneasy facing the fast bowlers. When David Hookes had his jaw shattered by a bouncer from Andy Roberts, helmets – which were then more like motorcycle crash helmets – and extra strap-on body protection became essential items in every WSC player’s kit bag.

WSC was expanded from its original concept of Australia against the Rest of the World to include the West Indies, who were emerging as the best team in the world with outstanding batsmen like Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd and their fearsome battery of fast bowlers led by Roberts and Michael Holding. The reason was very simple – money. The cash on offer from WSC was more than many West Indian cricketers might have expected to earn from their whole career, and given the status of the team – and Packer’s desire to make cricket a more physical, dangerous and therefore more watchable sport – the West Indian fast bowlers were irresistible to him.

The first Supertest was staged at VFL Park on 2 December 1977, featuring WSC Australia versus WSC West Indies. Not surprisingly, not many turned out to watch, but nevertheless, WSC was now up and running.

Packer’s plan was for WSC to drive his television audience, and since this naturally peaked in the evening, the solution was simple – to play limited-overs day/night matches under floodlights, with white balls, and in coloured clothing. This was an entirely new concept and one that the authorities mocked. They portrayed the cricketers as playing in pyjamas, and while the choice of coral pink for the West Indies did not go down at all well with the players because of the colour’s gay overtones, day/night cricket played on warm evenings under the stars was a genuine innovation, and another of Packer’s legacies. Games played under lights might be unsuited for top-class cricket, but slowly, and despite hostile media, crowds warmed to the idea and it clearly had a future.

At this stage, the ACB was winning the battle. Large crowds had turned out to support the traditional and closely fought Test series against India, which Australia won 3–2. Deprived of its best players, the ACB recalled the 41-year-old former captain Bobby Simpson to lead its team of youngsters. Simpson had been retired from the game for ten years but was hugely popular with Australian cricket lovers, who took to the notion that was peddled in the press of this ageing character being recalled to stand up for the proper form of cricket, which was coming under attack from the raucous and thoroughly uncouth WSC.

This image came under fire when Simpson then took his team to the Caribbean in March 1978. West Indies selected all their Packer players and Australia, armed only with Jeff Thomson, took a hammering, although they did manage to win one of the four Tests. Simpson averaged only 22 in the series and was subsequently replaced by Graham Yallop.

The ACB appeared to be winning the early salvos on the home front, at least, in their battle with WSC, but victory would depend on the other cricket boards around the world taking a similarly strong stance. England refused to select its Packer ‘rebels’ – Tony Greig, Dennis Amiss, Alan Knott, John Snow, Derek Underwood and Bob Woolmer – but the defeat in the High Court meant that they were available to play county cricket. Elsewhere, the WSC situation was widely viewed as being an Australian domestic problem and it soon became clear that no other countries were willing to ban their Packer players. Indeed, the impecunious West Indies board negotiated a WSC tour of the Caribbean for the spring of 1979, and when Packer signed up more young Australians for the second season, which was also to include a senior WSC tour featuring largely recently retired international cricketers, the ACB’s position was looking increasingly hopeless.

I was in Melbourne playing club cricket during the second season of WSC and watched a one-day match at VFL Park. Clive Lloyd, captain of the West Indian team, remembered me from a county game the previous summer and invited me into their dressing room to meet Michael Holding, Viv Richards and Andy Roberts. None of them, I can confirm, was best pleased with their outfits. My impression of the live event was that it failed to meet expectation – even of a then 18-year-old cricket fanatic. The floodlighting was poor, the playing area was the wrong shape, and the players were understandably suspicious of the quality of the drop-in pitch. There were very few spectators and the whole thing seemed rather gloomy. However, on television it came across entirely differently, and was very exciting. The floodlights, white balls and coloured clothing all shone on television, and the pitch microphones picked up every word – and there were plenty. WSC traded on being brash and brutal. Gradually sceptical television viewers began to enjoy this new way to watch the best cricketers in the world in a way that had never been possible before. I was changing my mind and began to think it was really thrilling.

The big breakthrough for WSC came in November 1978. Packer persuaded the premier of New South Wales, Neville Wran, to overturn the ban on his using the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground, and 44,377 people turned up to watch the floodlit match between WSC Australia and WSC West Indies. It was a huge success which coincided with the official Australian team losing the First Test to England. That series was to end in a 5–1 defeat for Yallop’s men and, as any Australian will tell you, they hate losing. The Supertest final between WSC Australia and WSC World XI was also played at the SCG and attracted a further forty thousand spectators over three days. Just a week later, half that number turned out to watch the Sixth Test between Australia and England. The tide was turning against the ACB, which was also recording alarming financial losses.

So it was with great interest that I attended the annual meeting of the Professional Cricketers’ Association at Edgbaston the following April. John Arlott presided over the conference, which coincided with negotiations between the various parties in Australia nearing a critical phase. Greig spoke, and was roundly criticised – publicly at least – but the majority of professionals in the room also hoped that WSC would lead to improved salaries for county cricketers. That was certainly the thrust of Greig’s argument.

The announcement of a deal came on 30 May 1979. Not only had Channel Nine won the exclusive rights to broadcast Australian cricket for ten years, but also to promote and market the game. There was a feeling in England that the ACB had sold out – the TCCB had lost a very expensive High Court case, after all – but a solution had to be found. Australia’s Packer players were not reselected until the following domestic season, when Greg Chappell was restored as the national captain, and as a sign of a return to normality, Mike Brearley led an England team to Australia to play three Tests. However, it being a shortened series, the TCCB refused to allow the Ashes to be contested – which was just as well, as Australia won every Test – and by refusing to permit its team to wear coloured clothes in the day/night internationals, the English board made itself look positively outdated and reactionary. This delighted the Australians, ensuring that the old rivalry received a much-needed injection of hostility, and after three tumultuous and turbulent years, normal service was resumed.

For a sport that is supposed to abide firmly to a strong moral code of gentlemanly behaviour, cricket has some undeniably dubious origins. By the end of the seventeenth century, gambling was inextricably linked to the sport and there are even suggestions that the emergence of county-based cricket came as a result of gamblers forming their own teams. There are reports of a ‘great match’ held in Sussex in 1697 being played for a stake of fifty guineas per side. But cricket was not the only sport to attract gamblers, and there is no suggestion of matches in the dim and distant past being ‘thrown’ or tampered with in any way in return for a pay-off. This was certainly well before there was any spot-fixing or any of the other corrupt activities that have become the scourge of the modern game.

It was in the 1990s that the cricketing rumour mill went into overdrive with claims that international matches were being fixed by players. Perhaps it was purely coincidental that this was also the time of numerous ball-tampering allegations, but it is definitely true to say that cricket’s reputation for being a clean and ethical sport was at its lowest ebb. Subsequent investigations and inquiries have confirmed the existence of corruption, fuelled by the massive illegal bookmaking industry in India and Dubai, in particular. The South Africa captain, Hansie Cronje, and his Indian counterpart, Mohammad Azharuddin, became the first high-profile international cricketers to be banned for match-fixing. When the extent of Cronje’s involvement unravelled during the subsequent inquiry in Cape Town in 2000, led by Judge King, it became clear that cricket faced a huge problem, and that the integrity of the sport was at stake.

The first claims of match-fixing originated in county cricket. Don Topley, an Essex player, created a storm when he announced that two matches played over a weekend in 1991 between Essex and Lancashire were fixed. The deal, he claimed, was for Essex to lose the Sunday League game in return for Lancashire allowing Essex, who were in the race for the County Championship title, to win the corresponding Championship match. Topley confessed to deliberately bowling poorly in the Sunday League match when he made his allegations in 1994. There was an investigation by the TCCB and, five years later, by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Metropolitan Police, who found insufficient evidence to press charges despite two new witnesses supporting Topley. The inquiry by the ECB was described by some as perfunctory, and it did not appear that many on the county circuit took Topley’s claims seriously.

Australian cricket was rocked by the news that two of its favourites, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, had both been given cash payments by an Indian bookmaker known only as John. Warne received A$5,000 and Waugh A$4,000 in exchange for what the players insist was nothing more than weather and pitch information before matches on their tour of Sri Lanka in 1994–5. An Australian journalist was tipped off that at least one Australian player was being paid by a bookmaker, and the officials were informed. Waugh and Warne admitted their involvement in unsigned handwritten statements, and the ACB chairman, Alan Crompton, fined the players. However, this was kept secret even from fellow members of the board who might have pressed for suspensions to be imposed. Another factor was that Waugh and Warne had both accused Salim Malik, the captain of Pakistan, of attempting to bribe them to lose matches and this information would have damaged their credibility as witnesses in the event of an inquiry.

But the scandal broke immediately before the Adelaide Test between Australia and England in December 1998 when Malcolm Conn, the Australian newspaper’s cricket correspondent, conducted his own investigation and published for the first time the connection with John, the mystery Indian bookie. In a packed media conference in the Adelaide pavilion, Warne and Waugh admitted to having been ‘naive and stupid’. The two players were vilified by the press and public alike, and Waugh received a hostile reception when he walked out to bat on the first day of the Test.

The initial reaction by the ACB does not come as a surprise. It was convenient in the dark decade of the 1990s for the finger of suspicion to point firmly at Pakistan. It is true that most of the rumours about corruption centred on Pakistan’s players, and their captain Salim Malik in particular. There appeared to be a determination among the game’s authorities to make an example of Malik, who in May 2000 became the first cricketer to be banned for match-fixing.

Malik’s fate was determined by Justice Malik Qayyum, a Pakistani judge, who was appointed by the Pakistan Cricket Board to examine allegations of corruption against members of the Pakistan team. In Qayyum’s report, Salim Malik was found guilty of match-fixing in Sri Lanka in 1994–5 and attempted match-fixing in Australia in 1994, and banned for life. Ata-ur-Rehman was also banned for life for ‘general match-fixing’. Other penalties were imposed on some of the best-known Pakistan cricketers. Wasim Akram was found ‘not to be above board’ and fined £3,700. Waqar Younis was censured and fined £1,200, as was Inzamam-ul-Haq. The leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed, who became England’s spin-bowling coach, was fined £3,700. Six years later, Qayyum admitted that he had been lenient on some players, including Wasim Akram, because he had a soft spot for them and was a fan.

The scale of corruption within cricket only surfaced for the first time when the shocking news broke that Hansie Cronje, a man who in South Africa would be ranked only one division below Nelson Mandela in terms of popularity and standing, was suspected of match-fixing. The source was the Delhi police force, which, in April 2000, made public the details of a taped telephone conversation between Cronje and a known bookmaker, Sanjay Chawla. Cronje initially denied the allegations but quickly admitted his guilt in exchange for immunity from prosecution in South Africa. The Indian captain, Mohammad Azharuddin, was also seriously implicated and they both received life bans from the game. During the King Commission of Inquiry, details emerged of Cronje’s largely unsuccessful attempts to corrupt a number of his team-mates. Depressingly, these were generally the most vulnerable, either through race or by being on the fringe of selection, and therefore the easiest to influence. Henry Williams, a black pace bowler, testified that he was offered US$15,000 to bowl badly in a one-day international against India, and Herschelle Gibbs, the opening batsman, the same amount to score fewer than 20 runs. As a result of the evidence, both players were fined and suspended by the South African board for six months.

From an English perspective, the most absorbing details to emerge centred on a rain-affected Test match played between South Africa and England at Pretoria in January 2000. At the start of the last day of the final Test, only forty-five overs had been possible throughout the match, and South Africa, in their first innings, were 155 for six. A number of suggestions for making something from nothing had already been dismissed by the administrators. South Africa had already won the series so there was nothing at stake in that regard and, strongly persuaded by Cronje, the England captain, Nasser Hussain, agreed to forfeit England’s first innings in exchange for South Africa reaching a pre-agreed total of 250 and forfeiting their second innings in order to set up the prospect of an interesting day’s cricket. This went down very well with the thousand or so England supporters who had made the trip and who were mighty frustrated, and it was hailed from the press and commentary boxes as a great day for cricket. Not everyone agreed, particularly those who had an interest in horse racing. Mike Atherton was a dissenter within the England ranks, while Sir Ian Botham and the journalist Jack Bannister were vociferous in their disapproval behind the scenes. Effectively, the draw – a nailed-on certainty – was suddenly made vulnerable, and this caused alarm in legitimate betting circles where the book had already been closed.

Under the contrived arrangement, England were set 249 to win, which they achieved with just two wickets and five balls remaining, ensuring that the spectators had their entertainment. However, what was known only to Cronje was that, on the evening before the final day, he was approached by a South African bookmaker, Marlon Aronstam, who offered to give 500,000 rand (approximately £33,300) to the charity of Cronje’s choice if he declared to make a game of it. When the match was over, Aronstam gave Cronje two payments totalling 50,000 rand (£3,300) and a leather jacket.

Although a large number of South Africans refused point blank to believe a word of the evidence against their national hero, Cronje’s fall from grace was dramatic and ultimately tragic. On 1 June 2002, aged 32, he died in a plane crash in mountains near George in South Africa. Inevitably, conspiracy theories flourished in the immediate aftermath, and then again in 2007 when Bob Woolmer – who had been Cronje’s coach and confidant – was found dead in his Jamaican hotel room. Woolmer was coach of Pakistan at the time, and his team had just been knocked out of the World Cup at the earliest opportunity as a result of a surprise loss to Ireland. The inquests recorded death by pilot error in Cronje’s case, but returned an open verdict in Woolmer’s, which left open the possibility that he had been murdered. However, a review of the case by Scotland Yard determined that Woolmer had died of natural causes, most probably a heart attack.

Aware of the damage that was being done to the integrity of the game, the ICC set about tackling the most serious issue the game had ever faced. An anti-corruption unit was set up, which brought in a raft of stringent measures designed to increase awareness among the players and also to make contact with bookmakers more difficult. A zero-tolerance policy was introduced, leaving no one in any doubt that corrupt players would be heavily punished. It was widely accepted, however, that spot-fixing, in particular, would be very difficult to prove. This might involve the number of runs scored by a team during a specified passage of play in a one-day match, or even the outcome of a single delivery. A bowler delivering a wide or no-ball to order is all that is required for bookies to make a killing on the cricket-crazy, illegal betting markets on the Indian subcontinent.

Allegations of match-fixing, in which games were deliberately thrown by the majority of a team, went quiet after Cronje’s case because of the increased awareness of administrators, umpires and the media. However, this probably allowed spot-fixing to proliferate as the bookies were forced to change their approach. Cricket had lost its innocence in that the simplest dropped catch, inexplicable run-out or mysteriously slow innings now raises eyebrows. But it is one thing to harbour a suspicion in the commentary box, and quite another to make a serious allegation against a professional cricketer who might be guilty of nothing more than making a mistake.

The tour of England by the Pakistan team in the summer of 2010 provided a significant victory in the battle against corruption, although it took a sting by the Sunday tabloid newspaper the News of the World to bring it about. Sharp-eyed commentators working at the Lord’s Test – the final match of the summer – were surprised to see Mohammad Amir, the 18-year-old swing bowler, deliver two no-balls. But these were not ordinary no-balls: he overstepped the crease by a remarkable distance, and yet still released the ball, something that was impossible to explain.

It all became clear on the Sunday morning, which was the final day of the match, when the News of the World exposed the set-up in which an agent, Mazhar Majeed, was seen accepting £150,000 from the undercover reporter. The deal was that Majeed would arrange for three no-balls to be delivered to order, two by Amir and one by Mohammad Asif. Sure enough, the no-balls were bowled precisely as specified, and the Pakistan captain, Salman Butt, was revealed as the man who had passed the instructions to his bowlers.

The evidence appeared to be conclusive, and this was the verdict of the ICC, which conducted a disciplinary hearing despite the ongoing criminal investigation. All three players were found guilty and, on 5 February 2011, received lengthy bans – Butt for ten years, with five suspended; Asif seven years, with two suspended; and Amir five years. The players maintained their innocence, but in November 2011 were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to cheat at gambling and conspiracy to receive corrupt payments. Butt was jailed for two and a half years, Asif for one year and Amir for six months. The agent, Majeed, was imprisoned for two years eight months. The case was seen as a watershed moment in the battle that every sport faces against corruption, and it forced Pakistan’s authorities finally to take seriously the long-held view that its cricket team was more exposed to corruption than any other.

However, there was a shock in store for followers of county cricket when, in January 2012, a young Essex fast bowler, Mervyn Westfield, pleaded guilty to accepting £6,000 to deliberately under-perform in a match against Durham in 2009. He was imprisoned for four months after alleging in court that he had been persuaded to accept the bribe by the Pakistan and Essex leg-spinner, Danish Kaneria, who had been initially arrested with Westfield. Kaneria was released without charge, and denies Westfield’s allegations. However, the case underlines the extent to which corruption has infiltrated the game of cricket and that, potentially, any match televised live to the Indian subcontinent is at risk.

Why is it that cricket has attracted so many controversies over its relatively short life? Racism, corruption, politics – the great game has endured more than its fair share of issues, all of which have threatened its welfare. At least part of the answer must lie in the fact that it is a traditional sport founded upon a strict moral code of fair play and sporting conduct. Any threat to those principles is big news, and I am quite convinced that cricket crises – particularly of the political variety – make bigger headlines even than football crises because of the game’s historical links with the Commonwealth.

It is a fact that cricket has at times played a crucial role in shaping the world in which we live. This is plain to see in the D’Oliveira crisis, which made a nonsense of the often cowardly ambition of many to keep sport separate from politics. Separating the two is almost impossible to achieve and, besides, when you consider the dismantling of apartheid, sport – and cricket in particular – made a significant contribution. The D’Oliveira affair led directly to the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement in which Commonwealth leaders agreed to boycott all sporting contact with South Africa as part of the international fight against apartheid. Supporters of the rebel cricket tours that broke that agreement will say that the English XI tour in 1990, led by Mike Gatting, played a part in speeding up the end of the reviled political system in South Africa. It did, but not because it was the right thing to do. The ill-timed and insensitive tour was a financial disaster for the South African Cricket Union, coinciding as it did with the unbanning of the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. The tour became a focal point for demonstrators – Gatting famously admitted to hearing a ‘few people singing and dancing’ outside his hotel – and it quickly became obvious that the tour was unsustainable, and was called off.

Sport and politics are inextricably linked, but the type of sustained pressure that worked against South Africa does not work in every situation. It would not, for example, have made the slightest impression on Robert Mugabe’s stranglehold on South Africa’s neighbour, Zimbabwe, because sport does not play such a strong part in that country’s everyday life. However, an England cricket tour to Zimbabwe in 2003 did allow a precious opportunity for Western journalists – banned at the time by the regime – including myself to enter the country. Once inside, we were able to report on life within the country, from the consequences of rampant inflation to the witnessing of farms being burned to the ground.

It might be everyone’s ideal to keep sport and politics as far apart as possible, but not only is that naive, but it also denies sport the opportunity to play its part in civilizing society and improving lives. A number of great South African cricketers had their international careers ruined by the Gleneagles Agreement, and have every reason to be bitter towards the politicians who drove their own country into sporting isolation. Mike Procter, as fine an all-rounder as there has ever been, was restricted to just seven Tests before the curtain came down. ‘What’s one life,’ he asked me, ‘compared to the millions who were liberated?’