The golden bat of Don Bradman

Press, 10 May 1980, Page 20

The golden bat of Don Bradman

ALAN GIBSON,

of “The Times,” writes

of cricket's greatest batsman.

Fifty years ago. on April 30, Don Bradman played in his first match in England. Only those who followed Australian cricket closely —not many in this country in those days, when it was rare for an English newspaper to send or employ its own correspondent for an overseas tour —knew much about him. He had been chosen for the first test of the 1928-29 tour. He scored 18 (.held back to no. 7) and 1, and was dropped for the second. He was recalled for the third, and did much better in the rest of the series: 79, 112, 40, 48, 123, and 37 not out. But he was not thought by many to be the best young Australian batsman: that was surely Archie Jackson, whose 164 in the fourth test (he opened the innings, and had lost his first three partners when the total was 19) had everyone talking about Trumper. Jackson’s was the classical style, or the romantic style, or each by turns, according to his mood or your definitions. He died young, which certainly had a romantic touch. Bradman’s style was neither classical nor romantic. He was not categorisable. He did not die young—l can not think of any more improbable candidate for early death. At the end of that tour, Maurice Tate is supposed to have said to him, “You’ll

have to keep that hat of yours a bit straighter, Don, or you won't make many runs in England.” In the light of what Bradman did to Tate in 1930, it is a cruel recollection. Apart from the tests, Bradman had provided evidence of his ability with big scores in Australian Cricket. In January 1930. he had broken the world batting record, with 452 not out for New South

Wales against Queensland. But Englishmen were not much impressed by these domestic Australian occasions. Bradman had made the runs, wrote E. H. D. Sewell (who was not there), “against a team whose general bowling strength is about akin to that of an average London club side if, sometimes, as good.” There was also the thought that Ponsford, whose record of 437 Bradman had broken, had twice scored over 400 in Australian cricket, but we had kept him under control on English pitches in 1926. So when Bradman went out to bat at Worcester in 1930, nobody was prepared for the miracle. 1 use the word in the O.E.D. definition: “A marvellous event exceeding the known powers of nature.”

Bradman’s innings at Worcester was not in itself a miracle (as long before as 1382, H. H. Massie had scored 206 in his-first innings for the Australians in England) but it was a declaration of miraculous intent. The next 18 years (six lost to the war) provided a series of events which exceeded the known powers of batsmen, before or since. Without going into statistical detail, 1 re-

mind you that Bradman scored at least a century better than once in three times he went to the wicket. Worcestershire batted first that day, and after they were bowled out, Bradman had time to score 75 not out, at the close, in 90 minutes. The next day he took his score to 236, in 276 minutes. The bowlers opposed to him included Fred Root, who had played for England in the previous home series. Irving Rosenwater, in his admirable biography of Bradman, explains in a footnote why the tour had opened at Worcester, which had not happened before with the Austra-' lians. The counties had been asked if they would like to play tourists for their

opening match, regularly, and only Worcestershire said yes. This arrangement lasted for many years, and Worcestershire must have felt rewarded for their risks with the spring weather. All four of Bradman's tours to England began at Worcester, and his scores were three double centuries and a century (the last was in 1948. and I dare say he could have made it another double, but the muscles were beginning to ask questions and the younger men needed a chance). Think of an Australian tour in those years, and your first thought is of Bradman and Worcester. According to Mr Rosenwater. Wilfred Rhodes, who watched the 1930 innings, said afterwards to his fellow-Yorkshireman Waddington. “Abe, I have just seen the greatest batsman the world has ever seen.” This may be so. though we only have Waddington's word for it. and it sounds very unlike Wilfred. He was in his last season, and nearly got Bradman out first ball in. the Scarborough Festival. His later comments were somewhat less conclusive — “best I’ve ever seen, off back foot.” But that Rhodes. who did not frequently enthuse about young cricketers, should have made some such remark shows that he had

at least glimpsed the miracle. They say that Bradman could not bat well on wet wickets. There is some truth in this, though occasionally he provided some contrary evidence (as against Yorkshire at Sheffield in 1935). He came near to admitting this himself. “You wouldn’t expect a champion billiards player to perform on anything but a perfect cloth.” lie did have some luck in that his four summers in England were relatively fine ones. He failed, by. his own extraordinary standards, against Bodyline. which had been designed. technically legal but morally abominable, to curb him. He could never be sure of himself, he said, against Hedley Verity, because Hedley “had no breaking point” just like Bradman himself. Bradman, in the lengthening perspective of cricket history, will surely be seen as a spectacular interruption. Grace in his early years was as dominant among batsmen, but Grace drew upon . an orthodox tradition, magnified it, and otherwise left it much as he had found it. Bradman, from the start, played in his own way, never quite orthodox, but so successful it could not be called unsound, and never changed it, though he adjusted it as ex-

perience indicated and age required: never quite classical, never quite romantic. It might be said of him, in an altogether more complimentary sense than of the Bourbons, that he learned nothing and forgot nothing. Fie had no progenitors. He founded no school. He left no successors. The only other great batsman, of whom this might be said is Ranjitsinhhji, but Ranji’s career to Bradman's was a shooting star to a comet. Bradman was Sui Generis.