The friendship between Australia and Britain has never been so strained as when, in 1932-33, the English cricket team toured Australia.

In the third test match, played in Adelaide, they started using a style of bowling known as ‘bodyline’.This picture shows the difference between normal and bodyline bowling. A normal delivery is aimed at the stumps. A bodyline delivery is aimed at the batsman’s upper body, with the intention to scare him into swiping the ball to defend himself against injury. Fielders are placed close to the batsman on his legside, ready for a catch.

In the first over of bodyline bowling the ball narrowly missed Australian batsman Bill Woodfull’s head – unhelmeted in those days, of course. The next ball struck him over his heart. Later in the match Bert Oldfield’s skull was fractured.

Two members of the English team were particularly blamed and vilified as unsportsmanlike: Captain Douglas Jardine and bowler Harold Larwood.

Now England has a new champion: Jofra Archer (pictured here). He bowls fast and short, bouncing it up at the batsman’s head, with the clear aim to intimidate or injure him. He struck Steve Smith a near-fatal blow on the neck. But no-one’s calling it ‘bodyline’. Why not? What’s the difference? Why is the cricket fraternity not crying out against this obviously unsportsmanlike and potentially homicidal tactic?

Not being a cricket aficionado, I admit to being indebted to Wikipedia for the above details. I would really like someone to explain to me why aiming a hard, fast-moving projectile at an opponent’s head, which caused such a furore 86 years ago, is now OK.