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Bill Bowes's MCC cap from the famous "Bodyline" tour. Blue "melton" wool cricket cap with MCC touring badge embroidered to the front. "W.E. Bowes" handwritten in black ink to the maker's name label in the crown of the cap. Lining very frayed, worn and thready, small moth hole to one of the rear panels.
Bowes was only selected for one overseas tour, the MCC tour of Australia in 1932-33, better known as "Bodyline". At Melbourne in the Second Test, Bradman, who had missed the First Test, came in to such tumultuous applause that Bowes had to stop twice in the middle of his run for it to subside. Bowes felt sure Bradman expected a bouncer. So he ran up with his most threatening expression, but instead of digging the ball in he deliberately bowled one little more than stump high. Bradman, already halfway in position to hook, had suddenly to alter his stroke and in so doing pulled the ball into his wicket. Not many bowlers out-thought Bradman.
There has probably never been a great cricketer who looked less like one than Bowes. Standing 6ft 4in and wearing strong spectacles, he looked far more like a university professor, and indeed batted and fielded like one. His role in the Yorkshire side of the 1920s and 1930s was to take wickets; he was not to waste his valuable strength batting or chasing the ball in the field.
| Date: | 1932 |