New Age Of Marshals And Hitmen

This Archer’s arrows never miss. Jofra now heralds a renaissance of lethal fast bowling.

- Soumitra Bose

In a throwback to when fierce fast bowlers bestrode the cricketing scene, intimidating entire line-ups of cowering batsmen, cricket has been all fire and brimstone ever since the first ICC World Test Championship started with the Ashes. Even as England found a new talisman in Jofra Archer, it was Ben Stokes’s once-in-a-generation heroics (a calculated, yet devil-may-care, unbeaten 135) that scripted England’s series-levelling victory in the third Test at Headingley, Leeds.

Stokes’s grit with the bat and Steve Smith’s Bradmanesque consistency have enlivened the Ashes, but what’s given it a definite spring are the pacers on both sides who have spewed venom in conditions favouring seam and swing. The tall, lithe Archer, loose of limb and run-up, has everyone in awe of his skills, unexpectedly raw pace and the ability to attack the body. The ‘Bodyline’ series of 1932-33 in Australia has slipped beyond living memory, but comparisons are inevitably made. Eighty-seven summers back, Nottingham shire’s Harold Larwood, assisted by Bill Voce, led a pack of pace bowlers primarily to keep Donald Bradman in check. With the series tied at 1-1, the fuse was lit at the third Test in Adelaide. Larwood hit Bill Woodfull over the heart and fractured Bert Oldfield’s skull. Wisden said “the whole atmosphere was a disgrace to cricket” as Douglas Jardine’s speed demons bowled to his infamous ‘leg theory’—a leg- stump line with a packed leg-side field, meant not only to contain but also to intimidate and maim. Jardine’s bloody-mindedness put diplomatic ties between UK and Australia under threat.