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,
Bodyline in Australia found themselves shunned and persecuted by locals, and Australian visitors to England were treated similarly. In 1934–35 a statue of Prince Albert in Sydney was vandalised, with an ear being knocked off and the word "BODYLINE" painted on it. Both before and after World War II, numerous satirical cartoons and comedy skits were written, mostly in Australia, based on events of the bodyline tour. Generally, they poked fun at the English. In 1984, Australia's Network Ten produced a television mini-series titled "Bodyline", dramatising the events of the 1932–33 English tour of Australia. It starred Gary Sweet as Don