System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Donald Bradman, Batsman Supreme
Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest cricket batsman ever and Australia’s greatest sportsman, has died at age 92. He may have been the most celebrated Australian of all time, and his fame within the cricket-playing world was unrivaled. But for those who inhabit non-cricketing nations, his fame may be a bit harder to comprehend. Almost incomprehensible, in fact, if the following account, based on an intensive, ill-informed reading of the relevant sources is any guide:
When Bradman went to the crease, his approach was said to display an unorthodox style characterized by an “unclassical backlift,” the product of self-training rather than the textbooks most batsmen try to emulate. His grip on the cricket stump was unusual, and his swatting was said to be mechanical, like an adding machine. He amassed runs like a ticker too, scoring more triple centuries (6) and double centuries (37) than anyone in history. His test match average of 99.94 – a third higher than his nearest rival – was so impressive that the Australian Broadcasting Commission still uses it as its post office box number. He often cracked a grin when standing before the wicket.
Bradman burst onto the cricket scene as the 1930s depression wracked Australia, and he inspired the kind of worshipful reveries that only bad times can inspire. When he was on strike before the wicket, crowds would gather outside newspaper offices in cities like Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to watch his runs accumulate on scoreboards specially erected for the occasion. According to Australian publications the man referred to as “The Don” was not only a beacon of hope for the unemployed, but a symbol of the fitfully-emerging Australian nation.
His most stirring performances occurred during four tours on which he led his national team to victory over archrival England. So great was his dominance that he drove the Brits to the frightfully unsporting tactic called “Bodyline.” In Bodyline, fast bowlers fired short-pitched bouncers, aiming for the body and head. A cluster of short legs made up the field behind the stumps on the leg-side, “forcing batsmen to fend the ball to the fieldsmen or get hurt.” The Australian press described bodyline, which was subsequently declared illegal, as “sheer degeneracy.”
More words about his demeanor at the crease: He often started with a “push for one first ball,” and hardly ever hit a six because he avoided lofting the ball. Some said that he was vulnerable to top-class wrist spin, but “Of his 338 innings 16 were ducks while 37 were upward of 200. He was run out only four times, only once after he reached the age of 21.” More often his apostolic knocks off a leg spin bowler would yield fours to the offside.
Something of Bradman’s fame within the cricket-speaking world can be gleaned from Nelson Mandela’s reaction upon meeting an Australian, shortly after being released from South African prison in 1990: “Is Sir Donald Bradman still alive?”
Bradman was the antithesis of the publicity-grabbing, glad-handing modern sports hero. He was a loner, a teetotaler, and utterly devoted to his wife, a childhood friend with whom he lived his entire adult life in a suburban home he purchased in 1935. His stardom got him into trouble with Australian cricket authorities when he broke the federation’s code by issuing an autobiography. He was always a prickly and somewhat misanthropic person. He brought suit against those who tried to make money off his name and never endorsed anything. When he was knighted, for services to cricket, shortly after his retirement in 1949 he said, “I would have preferred to remain just mister.”
Yet he returned nearly every fan letter with an autograph, and shortly before he succumbed to pneumonia he issued the following statement: “As my days on earth rapidly draw to a close, I am proud to have set an example of all that is best in our noble game.”
