Blood on the Tracks
ACS Book of the Week
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Each week we spotlight a fascinating title from the vast collection catalogued in the Cricket Bibliography project, drawing on insightful (but not necessarily positive!) reviews from the archives of our journal. Today we bring you Blood on the Tracks: England in Australia 1974-75 (2025) by David Tossell, reviewed by Douglas Miller.
If the Bodyline series has justifiably aroused fresh interest in recent decades, the case for raking over the embers of this later venture under Mike Denness seems at least as strong. From the evidence David Tossell amasses one is convinced that the relentless pace attack of Lillee and Thomson made it the more brutal series, one of the last to be played without helmets. The book has been written before it is too late. With eight survivors of England’s original 16-man party, the author is able to make full use of the recollections of the likes of Dennis Amiss, Chris Old and David Lloyd. A greater proportion of the Australian players are still with us. Ian Chappell, Ross Edwards and Ian Redpath have all made valuable contributions, but the two fast bowlers are not among those interviewed. One whom the recorder also reached was umpire Robin Bailhache. A 37 year-old light in first-class experience, he was assigned at short notice to stand alongside Tom Brooks, a colleague whom he had never met. In a series of mounting tensions the same pair stood in all six matches. A mistake? Bailhache thinks so. He is not alone!
What makes this an outstandingly good book is the manner in which the author has assembled his story, weaving new testimony into a welter of earlier published memoirs and making full use of contemporary newspaper reports – at a time when Swanton and Woodcock were in their pomp. It is all set in the context of wider global events with the strict timeline of the matches making way for in-depth discussion of such issues as player remuneration, an especially hot topic for the Australians. It all hangs together because Tossell is an exceptionally good writer blessed with an enviably fresh style that never succumbs to the pitfall of pretention. The author’s ready eye for the absurd – Bailhache lacking accreditation to get into the Gabba, for instance – ensures that the book is laced with gentle humour.
We open with the selection of the party: the last minute choice of Brian Luckhurst after Geoffrey Boycott’s prolonged wavering; the crucial omission of John Snow because Gubby Allen could not be challenged. The travelling (economy class, of course), the room sharing arrangements, the tiring travel to goodwill matches in obscure venues – the reader is given a good feel for life on tour in those days. There are some reasonable results in the early state matches, but injuries soon abound. Out flies Cowdrey, Denness’s choice when the players would have preferred D’Oliveira. With so many crocks Luckhurst resents being ignored, while Bob Taylor finds eternal twelfth man duties challenging, but Lloyd on his first and only tour keeps spirits up as the series is lost by the end of the fourth of the six Tests. Bachelor Bedser manages the tour with a heavy hand and no understanding of players’ conjugal rights when the families come out – at the players’ expense. Assistant manager Alan Smith helps out by bowling in the nets, and it is physiotherapist Bernie Thomas who becomes the only shoulder to cry on. There is some consolation once Thomson is absent and Lillee breaks down, allowing Denness and Fletcher to fill their boots as England win the final match by an innings before the same pair repeat their success in New Zealand.
The twists and turns of the Tests are captured in great detail. For most authors breathing life into descriptions of play is their greatest challenges if they are to go beyond the details of the score card. It is a challenge Tossell has met by constructing his own Frindall-style linear score sheets, a massive task, ‘to immerse myself in the ebb and flow of play and to create a more authentic narrative around the action.’ Other sources help paint a fuller picture of the ducking and weaving and the glancing blows. Whatever his methods, Tossell has brought the matches to life more vividly than in any other book I have read.
The mainstream text takes up only 298 of the book’s 388 pages. This allows for a statistical section of unusual length that comprises full score cards, rather unattractively presented in the quest for fitting in additional information, with the linear scores adding a further seven or eight pages per Test. Nerdier statisticians will enjoy poring over them. Personally so long as the car goes I don’t wish to look under the bonnet. It all helps to squeeze out an index, which many might value more and which would typically be a key distinguisher between Fairfield and Pitch.