Sir Donald ‘Don’ George Bradman, (August 27, 1908– February 25, 2001) was an Australian cricket player who is universally regarded as the greatest batsman of all time, and is one of Australia’s most popular sporting heroes. Among those who have a meaningful Test match batting average through batting in more than 20 innings, his figure of 99.94 is over 63% higher than that achieved by any other cricketer.
Born on 27 August 1908 in Cootamundra, New South Wales, but raised in Bowral (where the Bradman Museum and Bradman Oval are located), Bradman practiced obsessively during his youth. At home he invented his own one-man cricket game using a stump and a golf ball. A water tank stood on a brick stand behind the Bradman home on a covered and paved area. When hit into the curved brick stand, the ball would rebound at high speed and varying angles. This form of practice helped him to develop split-second speed and accuracy.
After a brief dalliance with tennis he dedicated himself to cricket, playing for local sides before attracting sufficient attention to be drafted in grade cricket in Sydney at the age of 18. Within a year he was representing New South Wales and within three he had made his Test debut.
Receiving some criticism in his first Ashes series in 1928–1929, he worked constantly to remove the few weaknesses in his game and by the time of the Bodyline series he was without peer as a batsman.
Possessing a great stillness whilst awaiting the delivery, his shotmaking was based on a combination of excellent vision, speed of both thought and footwork and a decisive, powerful bat motion with a pronounced follow-through. Technically his play was almost flawless, strong on both sides of the wicket.
Despite occasional battles with illness, he continued to dominate world cricket throughout the 1930s and is credited with raising the spirit of a nation suffering under the vagaries of the Great Depression.
Over an international career spanning 20 years from 1928 to 1948, Bradman’s statistical achievements were unparalleled. He broke scoring records for both first-class and Test cricket; his highest international score (334) stood for decades as the highest ever Test score by an Australian. It was then equalled by Mark Taylor, who declared with his score at 334 not out in what many regard as a deliberate tribute to Bradman. In 2003 it was once more equalled, then surpassed by Matthew Hayden, who fittingly went on to gain the highest score in Test cricket (380) up to that time.
For decades, Bradman was the only player with two Test triple centuries in a career. He was joined by West Indian Brian Lara in 2004; Lara broke Hayden’s record, and recorded the first Test quadruple century in history in the process of joining Bradman in this exclusive club.
Approaching forty years of age (most players today are retired by their mid-thirties), he returned to play cricket after World War II, leading one of the most talented teams in Australia’s history. In his farewell 1948 tour of England the team he led, dubbed ‘The Invincibles’, went undefeated throughout the tour, a feat unmatched before or since.
On the occasion of his last international innings, Bradman needed four runs to be able to retire with a batting average of 100, but was dismissed for duck by spin bowler Eric Hollies. Applauded onto the pitch by both teams, it was sometimes claimed that he was unable to see the ball due to the tears welling in his eyes, a claim Bradman always dismissed as sentimental nonsense. “I knew it would be my last Test match after a career spanning 20-years”, he said, “but to suggest I got out as some people did, because I had tears in my eyes, is to belittle the bowler and is quite untrue.” Regardless, he was given a guard of honour by players and spectators alike as he left the ground with a batting average of 99.94 from his 52 Tests, nearly double the average of any other player before or since.
Bradman so dominated the game that special bowling tactics, known as Bodyline, regarded by many as unsporting and dangerous, were devised by England captain Douglas Jardine to reduce his dominance in a series of international matches against England in the Australian summer of 1932–1933. The principal English exponent of Bodyline was the Nottinghamshire pace bowler Harold Larwood, and the contest between Bradman and Larwood was to prove to be the focal point of the competition.
Further evidence of his supreme athletic skills was revealed when Bradman missed the 1935–36 tour to South Africa due to illness. During his absence from cricket, Bradman took up squash to keep himself fit. He subsequently won the South Australian Open Squash Championship.
Bradman was selected as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1931. He was awarded a knighthood in 1949, and a Companion of the Order of Australia (Australia’s highest civil honour) in 1979. In 1996, he was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame as one of the ten innaugural members.
In 2000, Bradman was named by all 100 members of a panel of experts as the leading one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century.
The name ‘Bradman’ is now a protected term in Australia, and it cannot be used as a part of a trademark except for government-approved instituions linked to Donald Bradman.
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