by Simon Wright

Created on: July 13, 2009   Last Updated: July 21, 2009

During the recent radio coverage of the current Ashes tour, between England and Australia, I heard a great quote about Sir Donald Bradman, the famous Australian cricket player. It went as follows: In the 1980s, England's fast bowler Bob Willis had the fortune to meet Sir Donald Bradman, legend of cricket. Bradman had been the dominant player from the 1930s and 1940s and the Australian had amassed stats that are unlikely ever to be bettered. Willis was keen to get The Don's view on what he might have averaged if he had played in the modern game. Bradman looked at Willis and replied that he reckoned that he would have averaged about fifty runs per game. Willis expressed surprise, having thought that the great man might have expected to have averaged more. Bradman looked Willis in the eye and then responded along the lines of "Well, I am in my seventies now!".

It's a nice story and, given Bradman's merciless record of putting England to the sword, Willis and his English contemporaries were probably just glad that Bradman wasn't just a few years younger! Let's look then at why Bradman has imprinted himself as such an important part of cricket's history and folklore.

Sir Donald Bradman is widely considered to have been the greatest ever cricket batsman. His test match batting average of 99.94 would certainly go some way to backing this up! Indeed, many consider Bradman to have been not only the game's greatest exponent with the bat, but also simply cricket's greatest ever player. This is the accolade that Wisden (known as the Bible of cricket) bestowed upon Bradman when they selected their five greatest players of the 20th century.

Born on the 27th of August 1908, in Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia, Bradman took up cricket from an early age. One of the interesting things about him however is that he claims to have been entirely self taught. In his own words, he stated that "I was never coached; I was never told how to hold a bat." Instead, he used to practice on his own, and sometimes used a cricket stump to hit a gold ball against a wall. When the ball rebounded, he would attempt to hit it again and this is credited with having helped to build up his incredible reactions and hand-eye co-ordination.

Bradman made his international test debut, for Australia, in 1928 at the age of twenty. It wasn't an instantly memorable introduction to the highest level of the sport. Bradman only managed to score knocks of 18 and 1 in his two innings, against England,

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