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, and was dropped for the next test match. However, great players in any sport always have the knack of responding to adversity and it wasn't long before Bradman had forced his way back into the Aussie team. His second match provided his first test century and Bradman was up and running in his quest to make his indelible mark on world cricket.
The 1930 Ashes series against England was to prove a real landmark in Bradman's ascent to the position of dominant batsman. England started the series as favourites to retain the Ashes trophy and had the added advantage of being on home soil. However, Bradman had other ideas and embarked on an incredible run of big scoring. He "warmed up" in the first test match with a score of 131. Then, scored 254 in the second test. He saved the best for the third match in the series, however, when he scored an incredible 334 which, not surprisingly, was a world record.
Such was Bradman's dominance during this period, that England resorted to the highly controversial Bodyline tactics in their next tour to Australia in the 1932/33 Ashes tour. Bodyline was a tactic whereby England packed their bowling line-up with fast bowlers and then delivered an abundance of short pitched deliveries that shot up off the turf towards the upper body or head of the Australian batsmen. It was considered poor sportsmanship and dangerous but had the desired effect, as England triumphed in the series. Bradman still averaged over 50 in that series but this was down considerably on his general average. It is probably the most famous example of a cricket team adapting their tactics to combat the perceived superiority of an opposing team, and the presence of Bradman was a key factor in England's tactics.
Bradman would continue to be a central figure in world cricket for the next fifteen years, finally bowing out, in 1948, with his last test match against (fittingly) the nation that he'd started out against, England.
Bradman's legacy:
The term "legacy", used in this context means "something handed down from a predecessor". Given this context, then, what is Sir Donald Bradman's legacy to sport and, in particular, to the sport of cricket? It's not an easy question to answer but here are a few thoughts on the sporting legacy that he provided:
Bradman set the standard against which all subsequent cricket batsmen came to be judged. He had raised the bar of what was possible and, even if no-one has yet managed to surpass some of his records, helped inspire future generations of players to strive for batting perfection. His legacy has been most keenly felt in his native Australia and it's probably fair to say that the pre-eminence that Australia have come to enjoy in the sport is, at least in part, due to the popularity that Bradman's flair and success helped to promote in his home country. Indeed, he will have been an inspiration, in Australia, not just to future cricketers but to sportsmen and women from all sports who have taken pride in wearing their nation's colours.
Bradman can also be seen as having helped to usher in the modern more professional era of cricket. His career straddled three decades and cricket was certainly a lot different by the end of the 1940s than it had been when Bradman started out on his cricket career in the Twenties.
At a technical level, Bradman's batting technique was much scrutinised and future generations of batsmen and cricket coaches have tried to school themselves and their proteges in the ways that proved so successful for The Don. Bradman is also credited with having adapted his style of batting to cope with the changing style of cricket bowling in the later half of his career, and this too will have inspired other cricketers to continue to learn and adapt.
Finally, the fact that Bradman is still widely considered the greatest cricketer of all time is testimony to his greatness. We're talking about a player who last played an international test match over sixty years ago, and who has been dead since 2001. Many of today's cricket players and commentators will never have witnessed Bradman bat but, almost universally, they continue to rever the memory of this cricketing great.
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/cricket/702818.stm