5 cricket facts that you have probably never heard of

#3. Part with your wicket or your life

Don Bradman was a batting Terminator in the good old days and used to toy with the English bowlers with one arm tied behind his back. The England captain, Douglas Jardine wanted to change this somehow and struck upon an innovative yet controversial method. The “fast leg theory” entailed that the batsman was to be continuously bombarded with bouncers on his leg side. Almost all the fielders were also positioned in catching positions on the leg side.

What this meant was that the batsmen could either try to hook the ball or else get hit on the body in an era without helmets. This ploy won England the Ashes but it triggered a political furore between the two nations, and the laws of the game were modified to disallow negative bowling. The 1932-33 Ashes series was forever rechristened as the Bodyline series.