MCC Library Cricket Series: Bodyline Casualty - The Bert Oldfield Story

For the first time, Bodyline Casualty - The Bert Oldfield Story reveals the complete story of an Australian cricket legend.

World-record-holding wicket-keeper, Bert Oldfield put everything on the line for his country - on the battlefield and on the cricket field. The sole survivor of a bomb blast in World War One, he later suffered a life-changing skull fracture during the infamous 1932-33 Bodyline Ashes series.

In this gripping biography, Gavin Gleeson uncovers previously unknown details of Oldfield's pivotal role in the Bodyline controversy, including his strained relationship with Donald Bradman, his surprising gesture of kindness toward England captain Douglas Jardine, and his eventual friendship with Harold Larwood - the very man who struck the Bodyline blow.

From imprisonment in an Egyptian dungeon, to working in a venereal disease clinic, and saving a lion from death row, Oldfield's life defied convention. He played almost every Test series between the wars, only to re-enlist in active service throughout World War Two. A successful businessman and devoted family man, the hard knocks Oldfield sustained in sport and war ultimately led to the seizures that beset his later years.

Born in Sydney in 1973, Gavin Gleeson attended his first Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground at the age of nine. A cadet radio journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Alice Springs, he went on to become the host of a Territory-wide night program on ABC Darwin in the mid-1990s.

After working as a spokesman for the Northern Territory Police, he returned to his home state to serve as an NSW Police Officer and child protection case worker.

Gavin has three adult children with his wife Katrina; the couple live on the NSW South Coast. ‘Bodyline Casualty – The Bert Oldfield Story’ is his first book.

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