Don Bradman

A man who was the shortest in the team but who aimed for the highest. A man who loved cricket more than his life and gave it a whole new meaning. He is someone who may not be alive in person, but he comes to life whenever someone hits a boundary or raises his bat to the crowd. He is the father figure of cricket and by far, the best batsman in the history of the game. He is, ‘The Don’.

Sir Donald George Bradman was, without any question, the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games. To start with, he had a deep and undying love of cricket, as well, of course, as exceptional natural ability. It was always said he could have become a champion at squash or tennis or golf or billiards, had he preferred them to cricket. The fact that, as a boy, he sharpened his reflexes and developed his strokes by hitting golf ball with a cricket stump as it rebounded off a water tank attests to his eye, fleetness of foot and, even when young, his rare powers of concentration. This gift of his had to be shown to the world and so he decided to do it with his true love, cricket.

This young lad from New South Wales came into the spotlight when he was just 20 years old. He made his debut against England at Brisbane on the November 30th 1928 and from that date onwards, he never looked back. In just a matter of a few months, Don Bradman was the name on everyone’s lips. His great eye-hand co-ordination was shown to all by the way he timed the ball to perfection and guided it to the boundary. All kinds of people, those who were and even those who weren’t interested in cricket, gathered in flocks to see this man tear the opposition apart. It was even made to believe that it was virtually impossible to get this batsman out. Hence, whenever the two words “He’s Out !” were blazoned across the London evening newspaper placards, it could have meant only one thing; somewhere, someone had managed to get rid of Don Bradman and had claimed fame that would last for quite some time.

But Bradman always thought otherwise, he believed that there were many other batsmen, contemporaries of his, who had the talent to be just as prolific as he was but lacked the concentration. Questions then started coming up, “How did anyone ever get him out?” And soon enough, answers started coming up. It seemed that he too had an Achilles’ heel; his shatter point proved to be wrist spin. The masters of wrist spin at that time were Clarrie Grimmet and Bill O’Reilly of England and the two used to trouble him immensely when it came to playing those googlies. Bradman called them the finest and therefore, presumably, the most testing bowlers he played against in his lifetime.

Throughout the 1930s and ’40s Bradman was the world’s master cricketer, so far ahead of everyone else that comparisons became pointless. In 1930, he scored 974 runs in the series, 309 of them in one amazing day at Headingley, and in seven Test series against England he remained a figure of utter dominance; Australia lost the Ashes only once, in 1932-33, when England were so spooked by Bradman that they devised a system of bowling, Bodyline, that history has damned as brutal and unfair, simply to thwart him. He still averaged 56 in the series. In all, he went to the crease 80 times in Tests, and scored 29 centuries and an infamous triple century. His sheer class had given him an average of around 99 and looked in prime shape to make it into a 100. A feat that no batsman has ever managed to achieve till date.

The year was 1948,the Oval cricket was packed choc-a-bloc. Don Bradman was to play his last innings in cricket and the bigger news was that he needed only 4 more runs to ensure an average of 100. As The Don walked down to the field to play his last innings, he faced the spinner Eric Hollies. As if lady luck had just left his side when he needed her the most, he was clean bowled for a duck and the record was left begging and still is till date.

But Bradman was still a hero and still the best in the game. He had made all those runs at high speed in a manner that bewildered opponents and entranced spectators. Though his batting was not classically beautiful, it was always awesome. As Neville Cardus put it, he was a devastating rarity: “A genius with an eye for business.”