History of cricket in Sri Lanka the All-Ceylon and native Ceylonese teams they played against, but they easily defeated a European team, thus proving that the standard of the Ceylonese players exceeded that of the Europeans. For many years first-class cricket was restricted to games by Ceylon against visiting touring teams, notably the English and Australian teams who used the island as a stopover on the long voyage to each other's country. Douglas Jardine's "bodyline" team was there in 1932–33. The first visit by a New Zealand team was in October 1937 to play a one-day match in Colombo. In the aftermath of World War II,
The Ashes the notable absence of Larwood, Voce and Jardine. The MCC had made it clear, in light of the revelations of the bodyline series, that these players would not face Australia. The MCC, although it had earlier condoned and encouraged bodyline tactics in the 1932–33 series, laid the blame on Larwood when relations turned sour. Larwood was forced by the MCC to either apologise or be removed from the Test side. He went for the latter. Australia recovered the Ashes in 1934 and held them until 1953, though no Test cricket was played during the Second World War. As in 1930,