Victory came after one of the most bitter encounters in sporting history and even threatened diplomatic relations.

"Cricket enthusiasts were shaken by what was going on out on the field of play and off it and relations between England and Australia were severely damaged,", asserted respected cricket historian David Frith in Bodyline Autopsy, his remarkable investigation into the 1932-33 series.

England's employed a tactic which became known as "bodyline", designed to intimidate the batting team.

They deemed it necessary because Australia had a man who redefined standards in the sport.

His name was Donald George Bradman, often known as "The Don", still revered today over 20 years after his passing.

Consider his international scores during the 1930 series in England.

A score of 131 in the First Test, 254 at Lord’s, then a gargantuan 334 at Leeds, at that time an individual record.

In the final Test came 232 more for a record series aggregate 974.

Astonishing for a man who had still not yet turned 22.

Bradman, from Bowral in New South Wales, had become such a hero that a song was released in celebration of his accomplishments.

"Who is it that all Australia raves about? Who has won our very highest praise?" the lyrics began.

"Is it Amy Johnson? Or little Mickey Mouse? No, he’s just a country lad who’s bringing down the house, and he’s our Don Bradman, there isn’t anything that he can’t do, every Aussie dips his lid to you." 

The next series in Australia was to be played from December 1932 to February 1933. 

"I feel convinced that something new will have to be introduced to curb Bradman," Jardine’s Surrey team mate Percy Fender predicted in The Observer.

Fender's Surrey team-mate Douglas Jardine was chosen to lead the England party.

He had an impeccable establishment background, educated at Winchester and Oxford University.

The team manager was former Test captain Pelham Warner, a grandee of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the prestigious club which organised England tours.

"England must evolve a new type of bowler and strange tactics to curb his uncanny skill," Warner said of Bradman.

He certainly did not envisage precisely what Jardine had in mind and was soon at loggerheads.

A type of bowling known as "leg theory" had been developed before the First World War.

Jardine sought out Frank Foster, who employed it captaining Warwickshire to the 1911 County Championship.

He also consulted Nottinghamshire skipper Arthur Carr and his two fast bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce.

Notts had won the 1929 County Championship and the pair deployed "leg theory" when the county played the Australians in 1930.

"Can you make the ball come up into the body?" Jardine asked.

"I think that can be done," Larwood replied.

"It is better to rely on speed than anything else when bowling to Bradman because he murders any loose stuff."

Although Amy Johnson had flown to Australia to great acclaim, there was no commercial air service to Australia in 1932.

Jardine cut a rather diffident figure as he stood in front of newsreel microphones before boarding the steamship Orontes for the long sea voyage.

"When we get to Australia, we shan’t forget the good wishes of those of us who have been kind enough to see us off, we hope that we will do as they hope we will do and return with the Ashes."

As the ship steamed through the Suez Canal and towards Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), plans for the series were laid.

The party made landfall in Perth, Western Australia at the end of October and spent the next month preparing for the Test series.

When the tourists played New South Wales, Bradman left the field with a chill and doctors declared him unfit for the First Test.

Larwood and Voce claimed all but one of the wickets in the first innings but Australia reached 360 thanks to an unbeaten 187 by Stan McCabe, who was two years younger than Bradman.

Herbert Sutcliffe, Walter Hammond and the Nawab of Pataudi all scored centuries as England totalled 524.

Larwood took five wickets in the second innings and England won comfortably by ten wickets.

Soon their bowling was being described as "bodyline."

A picturesque legend suggests that Australian journalist Hugh Buggy found he had insufficient money to pay for a telegram so shortened the words "line of the body," to "bodyline."

Other journalists had previously used it but Buggy is credited with making it widely known, but Jardine is said to have hated the word.

Bradman returned for the Second Test over the new year holiday in Melbourne.

Although he made a duck in the first innings, an unbeaten hundred in the second helped Australia win by 111 runs to level the series.

The Third Test in Adelaide a few days later saw ill feeling over bodyline erupt to a frightening degree.

Australian captain Bill Woodfull was hit over the heart by Larwood.

Later, wicketkeeper Bertie Oldfield was left with a cracked skull after a blow on the head.

"That increased the ire of the crowd and things were a bit dicky for a while," recalled future Test batsman Bill Brown who made his first class debut in 1932.

"We felt we were on the receiving end all the time, the public in Australia of course sided with our fellows."

England eventually won by 338 runs but mounted police had been on standby in case of crowd disorder.

Tensions increased when Australian Cricket Board secretary Bill Jeanes sent a message of protest to the MCC in London.

"The body-line bowling has assumed such proportions as to menace the best interests of the game," the cable began.

"It makes the protection of the body by batsmen the main consideration - it is causing an intensely bitter feeling between the players, as well as injuries, and in our opinion is unsportsmanlike.

"Unless it is stopped at once it is likely to upset the friendly relations existing between England and Australia," the message concluded.

Television coverage did not then exist so the MCC officials were unable to see why the Australians were complaining.

"We deplore your cable, your opinion that there has been unsportsmanlike play. We have the fullest confidence in our captain, team and managers and are sure that they would do nothing to infringe either the laws of cricket or the spirit of the game," came the reply.

"Using the word unsportsmanlike implied that you're ignoring the gentleman's conventions that rule the game," suggested Laurence Le Quesne, author of The Bodyline Controversy .

"These are people that are very sure that they are gentlemen," he added.

MCC offered to cancel the rest of the tour "with great reluctance" and there were even veiled hints at a trade embargo.

This prompted frantic negotiations behind the scenes in Australia before the offending word was withdrawn.

"The significance is that probably for the first time the relationship between the two countries comes under serious strain," cricket writer Gideon Haigh pointed out more recently.

The series did resume with a Test in Brisbane, which began on this day in 1933.

It was played in extreme heat, but England clinched the series with a six wicket victory to regain "The Ashes," the mysterious pot which had become a symbol of the contest.

They also won the final Test at Sydney by eight wickets.

King George V sent a congratulatory telegram but a few weeks later, the Australian Cricketer magazine grimly forecast "the transformation of the game into a battle of armoured men."

Leo O’Brien, a one time boxer who played two of the Tests, suggested that "Ned Kelly’s armour would be ideal."

Kelly was a nineteenth century Australian outlaw who wore a full metal helmet.

After the series, the British establishment closed ranks when Larwood refused to sign a letter of apology.

He had taken 33 wickets in the series but never played for England again and was made a scapegoat.

Larwood eventually emigrated to Australia.

The laws of cricket were eventually altered to outlaw "direct bowling attack."

Bradman had not performed to the colossal expectations of 1930, but repaid England's attempts to neutralise him in the following years.

By the time he retired in 1948, he had an unprecedented Test batting average of 99.94 and was knighted the following year.

Batting helmets were not introduced until the late 1970s, by which time Australia had Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, both of fearsome pace.

West Indies had four fast bowlers who maintained a relentless assault which gave no respite.

These included Michael Holding, nicknamed "Whispering Death", hardly encouraging for the batting side.

Australia are expected to boast an impressive array of fast bowlers for the 2023 Ashes series scheduled for June and July.

It is probably impossible to accurately compare the speeds of Mitchell Starc and captain Pat Cummins with the bodyline bowlers, although analysis of available film suggests deliveries by Larwood may have approached 160 kilometres per hour.

In any case, scarcely time to blink an eye.