CRICKET RECORDS SMASHED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18619, 15 July 1930, Page 11

CRICKET RECORDS SMASHED

BRADMAN: RECORD-SMASHER WONDERFUL BATTING PERFORMANCES At the age of 21, Don Bradman, the Australian Test Cricketer, has set a very hard task for those batsmen who will follow In his foot-steps in firstclass cricket. During the last couple of seasons he has shattered records completely. By scoring 334 In the third Test, he has put up a new record for scoring In a Test match, and already he has to his credit the world's record score of 452 not out, made last January for New South Wales against Queensland. So far, In all matches on the tour of England he has scored exactly 2000 runs in 23 Innings, one of which has yet to be completed, and has an average of 90.90. In Test matches so far his average is the colossal one of 145.6, and he has scored 1000 runs In Tests. Bradman has set himself new worlds to conquer ever since he entered flrstclass cricket. Last season, In a Sheffield game against Queensland, he broke the world’s first-class record for an individual score. He made 452 not out in 415 minutes, and hit 49 four*. He beat W. H. Ponsford's previous record of 429 easily. He made an Australian Test cricket individual record score of 254 in the second Test against England on the present tour, and now he has gone one better a few days after. He has smashed R. E. Foster’s record individual Test effort of 287 made against Australia in Australia In the 1903-4 season. In one respect, however, Bradman has not equalled Foster's feat at Sydney, for the Worcester player made his record score on his first appearance in a Test match. Foster's score was made in an innings total of 577. Bradman’s Test scores on the present tour so far are 8, 131, 254, 1 and 334. The mark of Bradman’s batting Is his fearless footwork, and this has served him excellently on English wickets and against English bowling. He must be placed In the first flight of all the batsmen the world has ever seen, and he compares favourably wfth Victor Trumper, though It must be remembered that that magnificent batsman made his runs against better bowling and on softer wickets than Bradman has.

Bradman’s first appearance In Test cricket was against A. P. F. Chapman’s team that toured Australia in 1928-29. It was a disastrous Test for Australia, and Bradman's showing, though no worse than that of the other Australian batsmen, was not brilliant. The game was played at Brisbane, and in Australia’s poor first-innings total of 122 he made 18 before going lbw to M. W. Tate. In the second Innings, on a crumbling wicket, when that fine lefthander, J. C. White, took four wickets for seven runs, he made one out of 66, being caught by Chapman off White. With a strange failure to take into account all the circumstances of that match, the Australian selectors dropped Bradman for the second Test, although on his earlier appearance at Brisbane in a Sheffield Shield game he had batted brilliantly for 131 and 133 not out against Queensland. In the next Sheffield Shield match against Victoria he scored for New South Wales one in the first Innings and 71 not out in the second. The public criticism of his omission from the second Test side must have been a factor in his selection for the third big game. This time, at Melbourne, he scored 79 and 112. In the fourth Test at Adelaide, he scored 40 and 58, being run out In the second Innings. But In the fifth Test—the only one of the series won by Australia —he scored 123 and 37 not out. For the series he was second In the averages to A. Jackson, also of New South Wales, with 66.85 In eight innings, one not out, as against Jackson's 69 In four innings. After the Test series Bradman reached a big score against Victoria for New South Wales—34o not out with a chance, out of a first-innings score of 713 for six wickets (declared). He broke the individual first-class aggregate last season against Queensland, of course. Bradman holds the Australian scoring record for first-class cricket In Australia. In 1928-29 he made 1690 runs at an average of 93 runs an innings.