Australia national cricket team age of 23 three years later, after playing eight Tests. The team was widely considered unstoppable, winning nine of its next ten Tests. The 1932–33 England tour of Australia is considered one of the most infamous episodes of cricket, due to the England team's use of bodyline, where captain Douglas Jardine instructed his bowlers Bill Voce and Harold Larwood to bowl fast, short-pitched deliveries aimed at the bodies of the Australian batsmen. The tactic, although effective, was widely considered by Australian crowds as vicious and unsporting. Injuries to Bill Woodfull, who was struck over the heart, and Bert Oldfield, who
Third Test, 1932–33 Ashes series ten wickets, as the English bowlers used Bodyline intermittently, to the crowd's vocal displeasure. The only Australian batsman to make an impact was Stan McCabe, who hooked and pulled everything aimed at his upper body, undeterred by the prospect of taking a potentially lethal blow to the head. He scored 187 not out in four hours, an innings described by leading historian David Frith as "among the most stirring innings Test cricket has ever produced". Behind the scenes, administrators began to express concerns to each other. Yet the English tactics did not earn universal disapproval; former Australian captain Monty Noble