Glorious Batting By Bradman And Ponsford In Leeds Test

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1934, Page 11

Glorious Batting By Bradman And Ponsford In Leeds Test

DISTINGUISHED CRITIC DESCRIBES RECORD-BREAKING STAND

rpHAT distinguished cricket writer, “Cricketer” (Neville Cardus) of the “Manchester Guardian," makes it plain that D. G. Bradman’s innings of 304 runs in the fourth Test of this year, at Leeds, was a finer one than his innings of 334 on the same ground four years ago. Cardus shows also that w. H. Ponsford’s innings of 181 in this Test was not overshadowed by Bradman’s. , Here is an extract from Cardus s description of the record-breaking fourth-wicket partnership, for 388 runs, of Ponsford and Bradman, after three wickets had fallen, late on the previous day, for only 39 runs:— ' ‘The day began with two balls by Bowes left over from the evening before; Bradman drove the first straight for four and the second to the on, also for four. These hits were ominous; they lacked the rhetoric which many times this summer has told us ol a Bradman- strangely different from the Bradman of six years ago, a Bradman in rebellion against his own mastery and driven a little beyond proportion to that intemperance Which hath been the untimely emptying of thrones Bradman on Saturday once again en-. tered his own domain, conquered himself as well as the enemy, and conveyed to us his pleasures in a spacious plenty. Those two preludial boundaries off Bowes were executed over the line of the ball with the body in control to an inch; the' strokes were fundamental; I saw them like grim, purposeful stanchions fixing to the earth a great innings. “Bradman drove another tour from Bowes, a drive to the off swift and beautiful. Then he batted half an hour and scored only 11 runs; every defensive sound of his protective blade was doom striking for. England’s bowlers. At the crucial moment Bradman put his genius into discipline for a while, sent it back for a term to the sound yet brilliant school of which he himself is head master. Throughout the present season it has been my belief that Bradman would make 200 in an innings, the first time he played the goodlength ball off the pitch consistently for half an hour, avoiding a single hit across the ball’s flight. Not once on Saturday did Bradman slash the offside ball round to long-on with his right foot across the wicket with an attitude excessively belligerent. ? Honest Service. “His genius was his good slave; Ins innings wedded art and utility, style and honest service,,, personal pride and devotion to his team. It was the Bradmap of 1930 With a difference; the batsmanship was organic, not mechanical Four years ago on this same comfort-

An Act Of God.

able Leeds wicket Bradman scored 300 runs in a Test match in a day, and he scored then as though moved by wheels and levers cunningly hidden from us, driven by a lifeless machinery simulating life. To-day’s wonderful innings had the vitality of brain, blood, and nerve; every part of it throbbed with a consciousness that was of the spirit; it was a creative innings which took its shape hour by hour according to the will of a cricketer playing for Australia; the design of it was political as well as handsome. First the base was well and truly laid; 100 runs in three and a-quarter hours; there the infantry of batsmanship went into action—another 100 in two hours. And at last when the moment was ripe the cavalry put the routing, finishing touch; 70 runs in 75 minutes, the bat a piercing quick lance. The precision in the three periods of Bradman's masterpiece was the precision of fipe art, not that of mechanical rotation. Ponsford’s limings. “But all this is as though we were forgetting Ponsford, who with Brad, man played his part in the biggest stand ever achieved in a Test match, 388 in five hours and a-half. The finest praise that could well be given to Ponsford is that he was never out of the picture; his cricket boldly invited comparison with Bradman’s and survived it. He was no mere bass fiddle in the orchestra of the day’s .batmanship; his innings was a solo part, too in a double concerto of classical cricket. The skill of Ponsford, different in pattern and inspiration from Bradman’s, was woven like a superb counterpoint in the texture of Australia’s innings; few other batsmen living at the present time could have played in Bradman’s company on Saturday and not seemed to live unseen in the shade of Bradman’s grandeur. Ponsford’s innings reminded us that there is one glory of the sun and another of the moon. He exhibited a magnificent defensive technique, directed mainly by a forward push that smothered the length ball at birth. His onside play was a model of economical propulsion; his bat circled round his wrists, and no daylight was to be discerned between the wide blade and his body. Every stroke spoke of experience and common sense. “Ponsford is experimental only against the really fast ball; ip this match England’s fast bowling is unmistakably slow. “Once and once only during the long day did Ponsford and Bradman reveal that like all humans they are prone to error and irrational impulse. Just before lunch Bowes was driven by desperation to the exploitation of a few short bumping balls; Ponsford wavered and retreated Dolphinwards; he made a sandbag of the rounded pari of his anatomy. His poise was mqmentarily disturbed, so that when his score stood at 70 and Australia’s at J. 66 he slashed at a rising off-side ball and sent an ideal cover-point catch to Mitchell, who missed the chance because he started much too late. A few moments earlier than that Bradman’s bat clove recklessly at a kicker and crashed the ball violently between square leg and mid-on rather deep; Hopwood stuck one hand cut and never looked like holding the catch, if catch it really was. Hopwood could scarcely be blamed: it is not the recognised duty of cricketers to hold sudden thunderbolts

“It was stated by cricketers during the lunch interval that Bradman gave an opportunity of stumping to.' Ames when his score was in the fifties, off Mitchell, who nearly bowled Ponsford when he also was in the fifties. These lapses were as time’s faint' scratches on the pyramid of the Bradman and Ponsford stand—a stand that came to an end. only by what the insurance policies call an act of God. Forty minutes from close of. play Ponsford pulled a short ball from Verity to long-on, one of the afternoon’s noblest hits. But Ponsford disturbed the leg bail while performing the stroke, and human fallibility and the mischance of this our life claimed him as their , own after all.” .