When the Aussies, bar Donald Bradman, went back to school to prepare for the Ashes

England’s head coach Brendon McCullum continues to devise novel methods of preparation for his squad ahead of a Test series, but none so strange as the Australians’ build-up for the 1930 Ashes.

While McCullum likes preparations which involve spirit, these Australians opted for the spiritual. They visited Downside Abbey in Somerset for the three days immediately preceding the first Test in 1930 – all the Australian players, that is, except for a 21-year-old on his first tour, Donald Bradman, who declined to go.

A story survives in the West Country that Bradman refused to go with the rest of the Australians because Downside is Catholic and he was Church of England. It has some credibility too, owing to rumours of a sectarian divide in the Australian team: during the 1936-37 Ashes series four players, all Catholic, were called before the Australian board and questioned whether they were underperforming under Bradman’s captaincy.

Even before the Ashes series began in 1930, Bradman was a sensation. He had scored 1000 runs before the end of May, as only WG Grace and three other English batsmen had done. This was even more of an achievement for the member of a touring party, especially one new to England. The only touring batsman to have done it since was, of course, Bradman again in 1938.

On 10 June 1930 the Australians, under the captaincy of Bill Woodfull, speedily finished off their three-day game against Cambridge University. Bradman scored only 32, yet it was his most successful match as a bowler. He took three wickets in each innings with legbreaks – and only 30 more in the whole of his first-class career.

The tourists, without Bradman, proceeded by train from Cambridge to Bath, to be driven south for an hour to Downside. The school magazine does not tell us exactly how this invitation was extended but there was a longstanding link in that a Downside monk had become the first Catholic Archbishop of Sydney.

The Raven, Downside’s annual magazine, reports that the Australians were driven straight to the school buildings to frustrate “the efforts of some press photographers. They then proceeded to the Allan, where they had a bathe with members of the School, after which light refreshments were served in the Lecture Room, which had been transformed from a cold and austere school room into a luxurious lounge.”

“The Australians rose for a late breakfast after which Mr Woodfull asked the Headmaster to give the school a holiday for the rest of the day.” During this visit everybody seems to have presented everyone else with cigarette cases: on this occasion the Head of the School gave gold and silver cases to Woodfull (who went on to become the headmaster of Melbourne High School).

“In reply the Australian captain said that he was very grateful for the present and for being invited to Downside for a rest and change of air, of which they were very much in need after the strain of hotel life and constant publicity.” These Australians and McCullum’s England squad have this much in common: the desire to get away and wind down just before an Ashes series.

Hereupon Australia’s finest batsmen (apart from Bradman) went to the Cricket Field and took it in turns to bat in the middle against the school’s 1st XI bowlers. The chaps were supplemented by Evelyn Hill, who had taken 33 wickets for Somerset, and Devon’s captain, who never played first-class cricket, but still: even in Bradman’s absence, these lads had to bowl against several batsmen whose first-class batting averages rank among the highest of all time.

Woodfull himself, nicknamed “the Unbowlable”, has the ninth highest first-class average of 64.99. His opening partner, Bill Ponsford, comes eighth with 65, and is still the only batsman ever to have made two first-class scores of 400. Alan Kippax also had a bat against the boys: his 57 is the 22nd highest first-class average.

Then there was Australia’s great prodigy, who before the start of this tour was not Bradman at all but Archie Jackson. In England’s Test series in Australia in 1928-29 Jackson, when only 19, had scored 164, most stylishly. “For sheer brilliance of execution his strokes during this delightful display could scarcely have been exceeded,” Wisden reported. Jackson was the coming man, only he died of TB aged 23.

Then came Vic Richardson, who kept hitting the ball into the pavilion which had been opened in time for the Australians’ visit and still stands on a bank behind the bowler’s arm. The Raven kept its pecker up by noting: “the School acquitted themselves very well, several good catches being made.”

Meanwhile, to go with this galaxy of batting stars, the little wizard Clarrie Grimmett was giving a master-class of wrist-spin for the boys in the nets. The Shane Warne of his day, with even more types of delivery, Grimmett finished his career with the most Test wickets to that point, 216, and averaged almost seven wickets per game.

At three o’clock some Australians went off to play golf or tennis, while others accompanied the headmaster on a visit to Cheddar and Wells. Dinner was served at 7.30 pm in the School Refectory, and attended by the Downside Old Boy Maurice Turnbull, who represented England at cricket and Wales at rugby. “Before going to bed all retired to the Lecture Room for refreshments or played Billiards.”

Next morning – and this is the day before the First Test at Trent Bridge – the Australian tour manager Mr Kelly, after the exchange of more cigarette cases, said their stay “had provided the most enjoyable part of their tour”. Afterwards they “played Clock Golf in the Rock Garden”, had lunch, then finally left by car for Bristol, accompanied by a charabanc of about 40 school cricketers and prefects to see them off from the station to Nottingham, where they arrived in early evening.

“As each car left there was a tremendous roar from the School, which increased in volume until it reached a climax with the last car containing Mr Grimmett, waving his hands, he being especially popular because of his extraordinary good nature and his willingness to sign any copy of his book on bowling.” Yes, Shane: Clarrie could milk it too.

Did this visit do the Australians much good? Not in the short term: they arrived in Nottingham too late to practise at Trent Bridge, and lost the first Test by 93 runs, even though Grimmett took 10 wickets. In the long term, however, the Australians won the series 2-1 and regained the Ashes.

So where was Bradman while the rest of the Australian players went back to school: was he boycotting Downside on religious grounds?

Bradman, in the 1930 Ashes, scored the most runs ever recorded in a Test series, 974. He was signed up to do a book at the end of the tour (for which he was fined by the Australian board for breach of contract). In it he accounts for his absence from the Downside visit.

“Whilst Woodfull and the rest went to Downside College (sic), I took advantage of the rest to spend a holiday with Mr Alf Stephens, an ex-mayor of my home town and captain of the Bowral Cricket Club. Long before I had attained the status of an Australian player, Mr Stephens told me that if ever I were chosen to go to England he would be there to see me.” It is a reasonable explanation.

It might even be that Bradman, being Bradman, sneaked in a net at Trent Bridge on the afternoon before his team-mates’ arrival. He scored 131 in his first Test in England, bowled only when he shouldered arms to a googly (having chopped on in his first innings).

In the second Test at Lord’s Bradman played what he considered his best innings, 254. In the third at Headingley he scored 334. Just like England were, the rest is history.