Bradman
On November 30th 1928, the 19-year-old Don Bradman
made his debut for Australia at Brisbane's Exhibition
Ground. He made just 18 in his first innings and England
won the Test by 675 runs, going on to take the series
3-1, despite two centuries from the young Bradman
in the following matches. Revenge was sweet for Bradman.
He next faced the English on tour in 1930 and his
aggregate of 974 runs - including 254 at Lord's, 334
at Headingley and 232 at The Oval - is by far the
highest in a Test series to this day. It was then
obvious to the world, as Australia swept to 2-1 Ashes
win, that this was a new batting phenomenon.
Bradman preferred
batting in England because the light was softer and
the turf more yielding than at home. He made 19 hundreds
against England between 1928 and 1948, including two
triple centuries and 6 double centuries. On the infamous
MCC tour to Australia of 1932/33, captain Douglas
Jardine's bodyline tactics were devised to counter
Bradman and succeeded in lowering his average from
139 to 56. Bradman was Australia's captain between
1936 and 1948, during which time his side won 11 Tests,
to England's three. He retained the Ashes through
4 series.
Probably the best
batsman to have played the modern game, The Don was
a relentless accumulator of runs, often at a rapid
rate, with a career average of 42 runs an hour. He
had the nimblest of feet and swift reflexes. Proficient
with all strokes, his best scoring stroke was the
pull, played all along the ground between mid on to
backward square leg. He was an excellent fielder,
particularly in the covers, and a decent bowler of
leg breaks.
The Adelaide native's
statistics speak for themselves. His total of 29 Test
hundreds has been exceeded only by Sunil Gavaskar,
who played nearly three times as many innings. His
batting average is far higher than any batsman with
more than the regulation 20 innings to his name and
he is the only man who has scored over 300 Test runs
in a day. His Test record was such that he needed
to score only 4 in his last ever innings for a career
average of 100 but, in the final match of the 1948
England tour, he was bowled by Eric Hollies second
ball for a duck and ended on 99.94.
Bradman was knighted
for services to cricket immediately following his
retirement in 1949, and appointed Commander of the
Order of Australia (AC) 1979 but, as the years advanced,
he retired from public life, becoming somewhat of
a recluse. On his 90th birthday, when 1,300 - including
Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar - sat down to a dinner
in Adelaide in aid of Bradman's favourite charities,
he dined quietly a mile or two away, at home with
his family.
