ABSTRACT
That first hasty telegram, sent to London from Adelaide on 18 January 1933 in the immediate aftermath of the row raised at Oldfield's injury, touched off a series of political chain reactions which carried the controversy well beyond Adelaide's boundary fences. The first level of reaction involved relations between the Australian players and their governing body. In turn, that helped unmask divisions within the Australian Cricket Board itself. The resultant uncertain handling of the crisis allowed the English team management to enlist the support of its local political representative who ushered the matter into the realms of official Anglo-Australian relations bureaucracy. Inevitably, the issue went from there to British political circles. This process was fanned by the ongoing fragility of wider Anglo-Australian relations and the consistently fierce protest of the Australian press which aggravated the Australian public's response to the new English cricket tactics.
