Bill Voce
Encyclopedia
Bill Voce was an English
cricket
er. He played for the Nottinghamshire
and England, and was an instrumental part of England's infamous Bodyline
tour of Australia
in 1932–1933.
, near Kirkby-in-Ashfield
, Nottinghamshire
.
He came from a working class background in the coal mining
districts around Nottingham
, and made his first-class
debut with Nottinghamshire against Gloucestershire
in 1927. A few good performances saw Voce keep his place despite the strength and variety of Nottinghmashire's bowling. At this stage, Voce was a classical left-arm spinner and some critics viewed him as a successor to Colin Blythe
. Thus, when he changed to a faster pace the following year there was a good deal of criticism, but, in 1929, Voce returned to his slower style with great success in a number of games on sticky wicket
s, notably against Northamptonshire
when he took fourteen wickets for 43 runs.
He was selected for the English tour of the West Indies and made his Test
debut in the first Test at Bridgetown
, Barbados
, on 11 January 1930. However, the hard wicket encouraged Voce to move to a faster style, and he had so much success that he persisted with the faster method when he returned to England, except on wet pitches. He did not do particularly well as a pace bowler in 1930, but following Australia's
tour of England in that summer, when Don Bradman scored freely against the English bowling, Voce was part of a meeting convened between the future English captain, Douglas Jardine
, and Nottinghamshire captain, Arthur Carr, to come up with a tactic to defeat Bradman and the Australians. Voce, and his fellow Nottinghamshire fast bowler, Harold Larwood
, agreed to a suggestion by Jardine that bowling fast rising balls into the batsmen's bodies, with several catching fielders on the leg side
would be an effective tactic.
Over the next two years, Voce and Larwood practised this modified form of leg theory
for Nottinghamshire, causing severe problems for opposing batsmen. Although Voce was somewhat slower than Larwood, his line, from left-arm over the wicket, and the steeper bounce that he obtained from his height, made him formidable enough and the batsmen got no relief when facing him. Voce took 123 wickets for 19.29 each in 1931, and with 136 for 16.87 each in 1932, he was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year
for 1933. His bowling was so good that he regained his Test place and, with Larwood, was named for the 1932–1933 English tour of Australia, to be captained by Jardine. The bowlers implemented Jardine's tactic, bowling fast and short at the Australian batsmen, with Voce inflicting several bruising injuries. The Australian media dubbed the tactic 'Bodyline'. This resulted in severe ill-feeling between the cricket teams, and the countries.
Following the Bodyline series, Voce declined severely as a bowler, but advanced as a hard-hitting batsman, to such an extent that he scored 1,020 runs for an average of over 35 in 1933 – though from Nottinghamshire's perspective, this advance was nothing in comparison to the loss of 140 wickets from Larwood, and a cut of half in Voce's tally. Voce was to remain a dangerous hitter for the rest of his career, and still holds the record for having played in the greatest number – five – of tenth wicket century stands in first-class cricket.
The political fallout resulting from Bodyline ensured that Voce, despite taking eight wickets against the Australians in 1934, was not chosen for any of the Tests, and before the 1935 season started, Voce asked MCC
not to choose him. However, in county cricket, Voce was as good a bowler as ever, and may have taken over 150 wickets in both 1935 and 1936, but for faulty catching in the slips. He declared himself available again during the latter year, and became party to the 1936/1937 tour under Gubby Allen
. Bowling this time to an off-side field, Voce, after a disappointing beginning, bowled superbly in the first Test at the Gabba with six for 41 on a perfect pitch, and crushed Australia with four for sixteen, after rain, on the fifth day. England won by 322 runs, and Voce again utilised a rain-affected pitch in the second Test with match figures of seven for 76, including three wickets in four balls. After taking seventeen wickets in the inaugural two Tests, Voce did not keep up his form in the last three due to a back problem. He still finished with 26 wickets to be the leading bowler for the series.
1937, however, was wiped out by a serious injury mid-season, and, even when fit again in the following two years, Voce was troubled by illness and had lost the venom of earlier in the decade. He failed to reach 100 wickets in either season, and joined the armed forces
during World War II
.
In 1946, at the age of thirty-seven, Voce played little cricket, but one excellent performance in a Test trial led him to be picked for his third tour of Australia for the 1946-47 Ashes series. Having arrived from a country that had had seven years of rationing Australia was a 'land flowing with milk and honey' and he soon put on two stone (28 lbs
in weight. Whilst his classic action remained, he had none of the venom of old, was overweight and medium-paced, and in a controversial umpiring decision Bradman was given not out after being caught for 28 off his bowling in the First Test. Voce failed to take a Test wicket on the tour and played his last Test match against Australia at Melbourne
in 1947, soon after which he announced his retirement from cricket to become county coach. However, so weak was Nottinghamshire's bowling attack, that he played five more matches for them, the last as late as 1952.
Voce played in twenty seven Tests, scoring 308 runs at an average of 13.39, and taking 98 wickets at an average of 27.88. However, even though he toured Australia three times, he never played for England against Australia in England.
Right up to his death in 1984, in Lenton, Nottingham
, at the age of 74, Voce was reluctant to discuss the Bodyline series, though it is known that he privately considered Bodyline to be wrong.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er. He played for the Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...
and England, and was an instrumental part of England's infamous Bodyline
Bodyline
Bodyline, also known as fast leg theory bowling, was a cricketing tactic devised by the English cricket team for their 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia, specifically to combat the extraordinary batting skill of Australia's Don Bradman...
tour of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1932–1933.
Life and career
William Voce was born in Annesley WoodhouseAnnesley Woodhouse
Annesley Woodhouse is a village in Nottinghamshire, England, located approximately 10 miles north of the City of Nottingham and 6 miles south of Mansfield, close to Junction 27 of the M1. With a current population of around 3.500, it originated as a farming community and expanded in the 19th and...
, near Kirkby-in-Ashfield
Kirkby-in-Ashfield
Kirkby-in-Ashfield is a market town in Nottinghamshire, England, with a population of 25,265 . It is a part of the Mansfield Urban Area. The Head Offices of Ashfield District Council are located there....
, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
.
He came from a working class background in the coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
districts around Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, and made his first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
debut with Nottinghamshire against Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....
in 1927. A few good performances saw Voce keep his place despite the strength and variety of Nottinghmashire's bowling. At this stage, Voce was a classical left-arm spinner and some critics viewed him as a successor to Colin Blythe
Colin Blythe
Colin Blythe , also known as Charlie Blythe, was a Kent and England left arm spinner who is regarded as one of the finest bowlers of the period between 1900 and 1914 - sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age" of cricket.-Career:Blythe first played...
. Thus, when he changed to a faster pace the following year there was a good deal of criticism, but, in 1929, Voce returned to his slower style with great success in a number of games on sticky wicket
Sticky wicket
Sticky wicket is a metaphor used to describe a difficult circumstance; it originates from difficult circumstances in the sport of cricket.-Origins:...
s, notably against Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Northamptonshire. Its limited overs team is called the Northants Steelbacks. The traditional club colour is Maroon. During the...
when he took fourteen wickets for 43 runs.
He was selected for the English tour of the West Indies and made his Test
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
debut in the first Test at Bridgetown
Bridgetown
The city of Bridgetown , metropolitan pop 96,578 , is the capital and largest city of the nation of Barbados. Formerly, the Town of Saint Michael, the Greater Bridgetown area is located within the parish of Saint Michael...
, Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, on 11 January 1930. However, the hard wicket encouraged Voce to move to a faster style, and he had so much success that he persisted with the faster method when he returned to England, except on wet pitches. He did not do particularly well as a pace bowler in 1930, but following Australia's
Australian cricket team
The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...
tour of England in that summer, when Don Bradman scored freely against the English bowling, Voce was part of a meeting convened between the future English captain, Douglas Jardine
Douglas Jardine
Douglas Robert Jardine was an English cricketer and captain of the England cricket team from 1931 to 1933–34.When describing cricket seasons, the convention used is that a single year represents an English cricket season, while two years represent a southern hemisphere cricket season because it...
, and Nottinghamshire captain, Arthur Carr, to come up with a tactic to defeat Bradman and the Australians. Voce, and his fellow Nottinghamshire fast bowler, Harold Larwood
Harold Larwood
Harold Larwood was an English cricket player, an extremely accurate fast bowler best known for his key role as the implementer of fast leg theory in the infamous "bodyline" Ashes Test series of 1932–33....
, agreed to a suggestion by Jardine that bowling fast rising balls into the batsmen's bodies, with several catching fielders on the leg side
Leg side
The leg side, or on side, is defined to be a particular half of the field used to play the sport of cricket.From the point of view of a right-handed batsman facing the bowler, it is the left hand side of the cricket field...
would be an effective tactic.
Over the next two years, Voce and Larwood practised this modified form of leg theory
Leg theory
Leg theory is a bowling tactic in the sport of cricket. The term leg theory is somewhat archaic and seldom used any more, but the basic tactic still plays a part in modern cricket....
for Nottinghamshire, causing severe problems for opposing batsmen. Although Voce was somewhat slower than Larwood, his line, from left-arm over the wicket, and the steeper bounce that he obtained from his height, made him formidable enough and the batsmen got no relief when facing him. Voce took 123 wickets for 19.29 each in 1931, and with 136 for 16.87 each in 1932, he was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
The Wisden Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season"...
for 1933. His bowling was so good that he regained his Test place and, with Larwood, was named for the 1932–1933 English tour of Australia, to be captained by Jardine. The bowlers implemented Jardine's tactic, bowling fast and short at the Australian batsmen, with Voce inflicting several bruising injuries. The Australian media dubbed the tactic 'Bodyline'. This resulted in severe ill-feeling between the cricket teams, and the countries.
Following the Bodyline series, Voce declined severely as a bowler, but advanced as a hard-hitting batsman, to such an extent that he scored 1,020 runs for an average of over 35 in 1933 – though from Nottinghamshire's perspective, this advance was nothing in comparison to the loss of 140 wickets from Larwood, and a cut of half in Voce's tally. Voce was to remain a dangerous hitter for the rest of his career, and still holds the record for having played in the greatest number – five – of tenth wicket century stands in first-class cricket.
The political fallout resulting from Bodyline ensured that Voce, despite taking eight wickets against the Australians in 1934, was not chosen for any of the Tests, and before the 1935 season started, Voce asked MCC
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
not to choose him. However, in county cricket, Voce was as good a bowler as ever, and may have taken over 150 wickets in both 1935 and 1936, but for faulty catching in the slips. He declared himself available again during the latter year, and became party to the 1936/1937 tour under Gubby Allen
Gubby Allen
Sir George Oswald Browning "Gubby" Allen, CBE was a cricketer who played for Middlesex, Cambridge University, MCC and England. Australian-born, Allen was a fast bowler and hard-hitting lower-order batsman, who captained England in eleven Test matches...
. Bowling this time to an off-side field, Voce, after a disappointing beginning, bowled superbly in the first Test at the Gabba with six for 41 on a perfect pitch, and crushed Australia with four for sixteen, after rain, on the fifth day. England won by 322 runs, and Voce again utilised a rain-affected pitch in the second Test with match figures of seven for 76, including three wickets in four balls. After taking seventeen wickets in the inaugural two Tests, Voce did not keep up his form in the last three due to a back problem. He still finished with 26 wickets to be the leading bowler for the series.
1937, however, was wiped out by a serious injury mid-season, and, even when fit again in the following two years, Voce was troubled by illness and had lost the venom of earlier in the decade. He failed to reach 100 wickets in either season, and joined the armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In 1946, at the age of thirty-seven, Voce played little cricket, but one excellent performance in a Test trial led him to be picked for his third tour of Australia for the 1946-47 Ashes series. Having arrived from a country that had had seven years of rationing Australia was a 'land flowing with milk and honey' and he soon put on two stone (28 lbs
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
in weight. Whilst his classic action remained, he had none of the venom of old, was overweight and medium-paced, and in a controversial umpiring decision Bradman was given not out after being caught for 28 off his bowling in the First Test. Voce failed to take a Test wicket on the tour and played his last Test match against Australia at Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
in 1947, soon after which he announced his retirement from cricket to become county coach. However, so weak was Nottinghamshire's bowling attack, that he played five more matches for them, the last as late as 1952.
Voce played in twenty seven Tests, scoring 308 runs at an average of 13.39, and taking 98 wickets at an average of 27.88. However, even though he toured Australia three times, he never played for England against Australia in England.
Right up to his death in 1984, in Lenton, Nottingham
Lenton, Nottingham
Lenton is an area of the City of Nottingham in the county of Nottinghamshire, England. Politically, it falls within the Nottingham South constituency. Most of the area lies within the electoral ward of "Dunkirk and Lenton", however the "Lenton Triangle" area, considered by most residents to be part...
, at the age of 74, Voce was reluctant to discuss the Bodyline series, though it is known that he privately considered Bodyline to be wrong.