Jack Fingleton

 

  'Jack' Fingleton was a right-handed opening batsman for New South Wales and Australia. He was a solid batsman with a superb defensive and courageous side to his play. Known for his writing abilities as well as his playing Jack Fingleton wrote a number of articles and books including: Cricket Crisis, Brightly Fades the Don and The Immortal Victor Trumper. Like many batsmen of their time, Fingleton struggled against Harold Larwood and Bill Voce during the infamous Bodyline Series.

 

His best form came in the 1935/6 tour of South Africa, where he scored three successive centuries, 112, 108 and 118 in the final Test held in Durban. He toured England once in 1934, and his defensive qualities were invaluable. Fingleton never saw eye to eye with Don Bradman, and matters were made worse during the Bodyline Series in 1932/3. Fingleton blamed Bradman for leaking the argument between Woodfull and Plum Warner to the press, although Bradman always maintained it was not him that informed them. During the many years of cricket that followed, Jack always tried to undermine Bradman at every opportunity, often at the cost of his team-mates. He was very critical of Bradman's captaincy and strict regime.

 

"Cricket Crisis", by Jack Fingleton (Extracts)

 

After a lot of praise for Bradman's uncanny timing: I hasten to add that all this concerned Bradman the Great, of the Good wicket. In that category he stood alone. He was towering, majestic, omniscient until the platter, the platter on his palace roof told him that the rains had arrived. Then he put off his majestic plumes and stole out to mix with the rabble, his features indistinguishable in the ranks of wet-wicket mediocri-ties. Bradman's repeated failures on wet wickets must remain the mystery or his career. I saw him bat on innumerable occasions on damaged wickets, but only twice did I see him succeed - Once for NSW against England, and again for Australia against Yorkshire.

 

About Bradman's attitude on a wet wicket:

 

It always seemed that Bradman refused to take wet wickets seriously. This was not in his gait to the wickets that slow, measured tread so common to him. He came in a hurry and invariably left in a hurry, as if he were in the middle of a telephone conversation in the pavilion when his turn came to bat. It seemed he could not be interested in such wickets; that he knew the good wicket would soon enough come along and provide him with his customary big score, thus effacing any memory of his failure on a bad wicket.

About Bradman's dismissal in the second test of the bodlyline series when a lot of expectation rested on him after Australia lost the first test badly:

 

Never could there have been such a dramatic anti-climax. I was at the other end and saw Bradman take his gaurd. Bowes whose pace in Australia was not comarable with that of Voce, let alone Larwood, began his lumbering run, and to my surprise, I saw Bradman leave his guard and move accross the wicket before Bowes had bowled the ball. The first natural and obvious principle of batsmanship is not to make up one's mind before the ball had been bowled. Not even Bradman could flout the canons of the game in such a manner, for if much could be done and disguised under the guise of unorthodoxy, that unorthodoxy itself had it's earthly limitations and did not embrace a miraculous foresight which told by the bowler's run to the wicket where the ball would pitch and it's direction. Bradman was outside the off-stump when the ball reached him. He swung at it and it hit into the base of his leg-stump. A hush fell over the ground, an unbelievable hush of calmity, for men refused to believe what they had seen. Bradman left the wickets in silence.

 

Was Bradman afraid? (dealing with Bradman's 71 at Sydney)

 

Bradman's stumps were left open not once but a dozen times. An ordinary straight ball from Larwood would have been enough to end Bradman's innings, but it seemed that the stumps were of minor concern to both Larwood and Bradman. It seemed that Larwood was anxious to claim a hit on Bradman in the final test - a thing that the Englishman had not done previously. And Bradman seemed just as determined that Larwood shouldn't. Larwood got a hit, late in Bradman's innings, with a stinging blow high on Bradman's left arm. In some quarters Bradman drew criticism upon himself with this type of batting. In others he was given lavish praise for the plan he had evolved to defeat bodyline. Was it not better, it was claimed, to die thus than to give a simple popping catch to the leg-trap?

 

Larwood made the blatant statement on returning to England that Bradman was frightened. The taunt stung Bradman. "I resent Larwood's accusation and deny it emphatically," he said. "According to Larwood's ideas, it would seem that to adopt orthodox methods and get hit is displaying courage. Any other method whereby his theory might be defeated evinced fear." "Actually," continued Bradman."My method of playing Larwood exposed me to considerably more danger than the orthodox way. Anyone who understands cricket knows that." These divergent opinions on the two leading actors of the Body-line drama are worth recording, though Bradman will not find an Australian batsman of that series to agree with him that he took more risks than they did.

 

When an acquaintance wished Bradman as he was leaving for the fourth test in Brisbane, he replied: "I would sooner return from Brisbane with a pair of ducks rather than with a pair of broken ribs." The person to whom this was said was amazed at what seemed to be Bradman's lack of thought for Australia's Test prospects, but Bradman at this stage and earlier, saw bodyline clearly for what it was.

 

About Larwood's bowling in general:

 

Hobbs wrote that Larwood of that year was at the peak of his career, and his figures compared to those of four years before, when the Australian batting wasnt so compact nor established as in 1932-33, lend support to the contention. A portion of his success, and a good portion, was due to the indimidatory nature of Badyline; but the truth is that Larwood was so fast and so skilful in the 1932-33 season that his figures would still have set a standard in history had he contented himself with an orthodox means of attack.

 

I write this with conviction and a true appreciation of the ability of Woodful and Ponsford, the might of Bradman, of the induvidual artistry of Kippax and McCabe and the rugged honesty of Richardson. That orthodoxy would have had to include the occasional bumper, a nessasary shaft in the armoury of all fast bowlers worthy of the name. It could also have included a concentration on the line of flight of the ball around the area of the hip, a delivery which gave Hendren many a catch at short leg.

 

One or two of the Australians might have grumbled at the bumper, as one or two of any country would, but they would not have recieved a word of sympathy from their team-mates or the public. Nobody, either, could have made a winning case against a battery of balls rising on the hip, even if the leg-side was packed. But the case passed from this category to that of bodyline as soon as the ball went higher than the hip, when it reared above the chest and especially the head. This, together with the cramping legside field, was intimidation and Body-line and a batsman's first concern was for his personal saftey.

 

A little foot-note about the infamous Warner-Woodful incident (Warner had accused Fingleton of releasing this information to the media):

 

The story as told me by Claude Corbett, then writing for the Sun, and a collegue of mine, was this: "I got a call from Don Bradman who told me he wanted to tell me something. Don was also working on a third sense for the Sun, being assosciated with a broadcasting firm and a sports store. We arranged a meeting in North Terrace, and, while we sat in his car, he told me all about the Warner-Woodful incident. It was too hot a story for me to run on my own, and I gave it all to the press."

 

I have always held it against the Don that he did not own up and clear me. Warner himself had the cheek to think such a sensational story would not leak out, as there were several in the team who maintained a "leaking" connection to the press. Bradman obviously didnt like what I wrote about him in "Cricket Crisis" and for years ignored me. Then one night we were both with the English team at dinner at Government house, Perth, and throughout the evening we studiously ignored each other. I thought it was all too silly and wrote the Don accordingly, and we agreed to bury the hatchet. No doubt this explanation will unearth the old feud again, but I think I owe it to myself to tell the story as Claude Corbett told it to me. At least Don Bradman was a very good and observant reporter. He had every detail correct.

 

More about Larwood:

 

Bowes had the bodyline spirit, but lacked the pace, and even though Voce, swinging into the batsman with the new ball, could be exceedingly difficult at times, he had neither the sustained pace nor control of Larwood. Larwood was the master, Voce merely the coadjuctor, whose haul was ripe because he followed in the footsteps of the master. It will thus be seen that the first essential of bodyline was control. And Larwood had control. It is my conviction that had Larwood not been in the 1932-33 side and bodyline had to rely on it's existence on Voce and Bowes, the theory would not have survived the first Test.

 

I will never see a greater fast bowler than Larwood. I am sure of that, and at this moment pay a tribute to him as a truly magnificent bowler. His genius that season with the ball was of the same mould as Bradman's with the bat in 1930. he had the advantage of a canny, astute captain in Jardine, who carefully nurtured him in quick, small bursts of bowling and who moreover (apart from the bodyline field placing), was as artful a skipper as you would ever meet in a day's walk in smelling out the weaknesses of bats-men. I, for one, will never cease to sing Larwood's praises as a bowler. I saw so much of pace bowlers from other lands, but I dont hesitate to put him on the highest pinnacle by himself (I never saw McDonald). One could tell his art from his run to the wickets. It was a poem of atheletic grace, as each muscle gave over to the other with perfect balance and power. He began his long run slowly, this splendidly proportioned athelete, like a sprinter unleashed for a hundred yards dash. His legs and arms pistoned up his speed and as he neared the wickets, he was in very truth like the flying Scotsman thundering through an east coast station. He was full of power, fire and fury - or so he looked at the batting end just before he delivered the ball at you at an estimated 90 miles an hour.

 

On Bradman as a captain:

 

Bradman did not have an inspiring influence on those who played under him. His leading bowlers did not consider him as a good captain. In the first place, he was not an idolized leader of men like Richardson was, for instance. The Australian team in South Africa in 1935-36, without Bradman and under the captaincy of Richardson pulled better together and was a superior all-round side to the Australian Eleven Bradman led in Australia in 1936-37 and 1938. No one made a 200 on the South African tour, but the fifties, sixties and centuries of the players gave all the margin McCormick, O'Reilly, Grimmet and Fleetwood-Smith desired for victory.

 

The prescence of Bradman in a side, because he was so much an individualist, often had a bad effect. he swamped the others and made them indifferent. Only a batsman knows how difficult it is to score a century, but Bradman made that poor meat and he made the scoring of 50 in a test match, once considered a splendid feat, almost go unrecognized.