Douglas Jardine

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Personal information
Douglas Jardine

England
Full name	Douglas Robert Jardine
Nickname	The Iron Duke
Born	23 October 1900(1900-10-23)
	Bombay, India
Died	18 June 1958 (aged 57)
	Montreux, Switzerland
Role	Top-order Batsman
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Leg break
International information
Test debut (cap 235)	23 June 1928: v West Indies
Last Test	10 February 1934: v India
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1920-1923	Oxford University
1921-1933	Surrey
1925-1933/34	MCC
Career statistics
	Tests	FC
Matches	22	262
Runs scored	1296	14,848
Batting average	48.00	46.83
100s/50s	1/10	35/72
Top score	127	214

Balls bowled	6	2582
Wickets	0	48
Bowling average	n/a	31.10
5 wickets in innings	0	1
10 wickets in match	0	0
Best bowling	0/10	6/28
Catches/stumpings	26/0	188/0
As of 17 May 2008 Source: [1]

Douglas Robert Jardine (born in 23 October 1900, Bombay, British India - died in 18 June 1958, Montreux, Switzerland) was an English cricketer and captain of the controversial 1932-33 Bodyline tour of Australia. He captained the England side from 1931 to 1933-34.

Jardine was born in Bombay, India (at the time a British colony), and was of Scottish descent. His parents were Malcolm Robert Jardine, who himself played first-class cricket for Oxford University and Middlesex, and Alison Moir. Douglas Jardine was educated at Horris Hill School in Newbury, Berkshire, Winchester College (where he was in the first eleven for three years, becoming captain in his final year and heading the batting with 997 runs, average 66.46^[1]) and New College, Oxford; he habitually wore the Oxford University Harlequin cap on the cricket field, which some saw as a symbol of pretension.

Upon entering Oxford in 1919, he received his blue in his first year, playing against Cambridge in 1920, 1921 and 1923. It was whilst batting for Oxford University v the 1921 Australian tourists that many think his hatred of all things Australian developed. The Australian captain Warwick Armstrong refused to allow play to continue past the scheduled end of play with Jardine 96 not out, and set to make a century against them^[2]. It was a rare event for a student to do so.

He made his Test debut for England against the West Indies at Lord's in 1928, scoring 83 in his second Test innings at Old Trafford^[3]. A skilled right-handed batsman, he was arguably England's best amateur batsman of his time - an age when cricketers were still divided between upper-class amateurs and working-class professionals.

He toured Australia with the English team in 1928-29. He played in all five Test matches, scoring 341 runs at the commendable average of 42.63. In a tour match against Tasmania he made his highest first-class score of 214^[4]. His skills displayed throughout the year led Wisden to name Jardine a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1928.

During the tour of Australia, for some reason Jardine appeared to develop an intense dislike for the country and its people. Australians claim that this was provoked by his own pretentious behaviour, as cricket fans took exception to his exclusive Harlequin cap and somewhat haughty attitude. It is recorded that during one tour match Australian player Hunter Hendry expressed his sympathies to Jardine for the jeers the crowd was giving him, and Jardine responded, "All Australians are uneducated, and an unruly mob."

Later, at the second Test in Sydney where the crowd was again hurling abuse at Jardine, fellow English cricketer Patsy Hendren observed that "They don't seem to like you very much over here, Mr Jardine." Jardine replied, "The feeling is fucking mutual". ^[5]

Jardine did not play in the 1930 English Test series against the touring Australian team because he preferred to attend to business appointments that summer. Nevertheless, he took a great interest in the extraordinary batting skills of Australia's Don Bradman, who finished the tour with a record (unbeaten to this day) aggregate of 974 Test runs at an average of 139.14.

Following this tour, Jardine held a meeting with Nottinghamshire captain Arthur Carr and his two fast bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce. Together they devised a plan of attack aimed at countering Bradman's skills, involving the bowling of repeated short deliveries aimed at the batsman's body, bowled to a predominantly leg-side field with a pronounced leg trap. This became known in the press as Bodyline. Jardine never referred to this kind of short-pitched bowling as "bodyline", preferring to call it "Fast Leg Theory".

Jardine first captained England in the home series against New Zealand in 1931. Given that he had been born in India, he was considered for the captaincy of India, but instead captained England against India in their inaugural Test at Lord's in 1932, top-scoring in both innings with 79 and 85 not out^[6]. Following his appointment as Percy Fender's successor as captain of Surrey in 1932, Jardine was retained as captain for the tour to Australia in 1932-33, and used the Bodyline tactics ruthlessly and effectively against his opposition. He also appreciated the benefit of psychologically boosting his own players; on the boat trip out to Australia he encouraged his team to foster a hatred for the Australian players, and to refer to Don Bradman exclusively as "the little bastard".

In Australia, Larwood and Voce repeatedly hit Australian batsmen with fast balls, causing outrage amongst Australian fans. In the third Test at Adelaide, Larwood struck Australian captain Bill Woodfull over the heart, resulting in serious injury. Jardine's reaction was to call audibly to Larwood, "Well bowled, Harold!" Larwood had been bowling to a conventional field; at this point Jardine calmly signalled to his fielders to move the leg-side positions typical of Bodyline. Later in the same game, Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield was struck on the head by another Larwood delivery, which fractured his skull (although Oldfield admitted that this was his fault as the injury was caused by a full ball deflecting off the bat into his head).

Despite the uproar by the Australian public and the Australian Board of Control for Cricket, Jardine insisted his tactic was not designed to cause injury and that he was leading his team in a sportsmanlike and gentlemanly manner, arguing that it was up to the Australian batsmen to play their way out of trouble. It seems he did genuinely regret the injuries suffered by his opponents, as he secretly sent a telegram of sympathy to Bert Oldfield's wife and arranged for presents to be given to his young daughters.

But his popularity with the general Australian public never recovered. In a famous incident recorded by the press, Jardine was on the field and trying to brush a persistent fly away from his face when a spectator yelled across the ground, "Leave our flies alone, Jardine! They're the only flamin' friends you've got here!"

Strongly-worded cables passed between the Australian Board of Control, who asserted that Bodyline bowling has assumed such proportions as to menace the best interests of the game, making protection of the body the main consideration, and the MCC. The Australians threatened to call off the projected tour of England in 1934. MCC at length agreed that a form of bowling which is obviously a direct attack by the bowler upon the batsman would be an offence against the spirit of the game. Jardine always defended his tactics and in a book he wrote about the tour described allegations that the England bowlers directed their attack with the intention of causing physical harm as stupid and patently untruthful.

However, Jardine and his team returned to England as heroes, having convincingly won back The Ashes 4-1. The principal objective of Bodyline had always been to counter Donald Bradman's extraordinary runscoring; in this it was successful, as Bradman's output was reduced to 396 runs from four Tests at an average of 56.57, an excellent series by any ordinary batsman's measure, but poor for Bradman in comparison to his previous England tour (974 runs at 139.14), and his full Test career figures (6996 runs at 99.94); indeed, the least prolific Test series of his career^[7].

Jardine always maintained that "fast leg theory" could be successfully countered by determined batsmanship; his opportunity to demonstrate this arose when West Indian fast bowlers Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine employed the tactic against England during the Old Trafford Test in 1933. Jardine made 127, his only Test century^[8]; during the course of his innings he received much physical punishment, but he felt that he had made his point. He was invited by the MCC to captain England again for the Tests against India, before deciding that he had no wish to captain England again and resigning before the 1934 Ashes tour. In effect, he retired from first class cricket in 1934 aged 33.

In 1934 MCC finally issued a ruling: That the type of bowling regarded as a direct attack by the bowler upon the batsman, and therefore unfair, consists in persistent and systematic bowling of fast and short-pitched balls at the batsman standing clear of his wicket. That was the end of body-line bowling.

Jardine married Irene Margaret Peat (1914-1998), daughter of Sir Harry Peat, in 1934. They had four children: Fianach, Marion, Iona and Euan. During the war, he was commissioned into the Royal Berkshire Regiment, serving with distinction in both France and India. Jardine died from lung cancer aged 57, in Montreux, Switzerland. His ashes were returned to Scotland to be scattered at Loch Rannoch.

To the present day, Jardine is remembered throughout much of the cricket world as the architect of what some, particularly in Australia, consider highly ruthless tactics designed to win the game of cricket. The fact remains nevertheless that these tactics were within the rules of the game at the time; furthermore, the tactic of intimidating batsmen with bouncers (without a supporting Bodyline field) later became commonplace, although the degree to which this is as intimidating to the batsmen as bodyline is open to question (current cricket laws restrict the number of bouncers bowled to a batsman per over, which were unrestricted in Jardine's time). Jardine's reputation remains particularly low in Australia, where respected cricket commentator Alan McGilvray once described Jardine as "the most notorious Englishman since Jack the Ripper". However in England his reputation is as a ruthless, highly determined player and perhaps the first amateur captain with a fully professional attitude. Indeed, Sir Pelham Warner commented "If ever there was a cricket match between England and the rest of the world, and the fate of England depended upon the result, I would pick Jardine as England Captain every time". This pattern of popularity (admired in England for the skill and ruthless innovative flair in his captaincy, and for his success; reviled in Australia for questionable sportsmanship and for a perceived Oxbridge aloofness) would later be emulated by Mike Brearley. Jardine is remembered as the originator of what many consider one of the most eloquent descriptions of the sport of cricket:

“

Cricket is battle and service and sport and art.

”

Jardine played in 22 Test matches for England, scoring 1,296 runs at an average of 48.00. In his first-class cricket career, he played 262 matches, scoring 14,848 runs at an average of 46.83. He also bowled leg spin at first-class level, taking 48 wickets at an average of 31.10. A stand is named in his honour at Surrey's home ground, The Oval, London, England.