His position remains as constant as the alphabets

AS HE came out to bat at The Oval on August 14, 1948, at the fall of the first Australian wicket, the spectators rose to their feet and applauded. When he arrived at the wicket, the England captain Norman Yardley called all the players around him and sang: ``For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.'' They gave him three cheers. He was moved.

But, almost unnaturally, he missed that googly from Eric Hollies. He was bowled, for a duck, second ball. He had needed just a boundary in that last Test innings of his to take his average to 100 and complete 7,000 runs. ``No I didn't know it at the time (that I needed four to have an average of 100)...I don't think the Englishmen knew it either, or they may have let me get those runs,'' he said later.

Donald George Bradman thus ended his astonishing Test career with 6,996 runs, averaging 99.94 per innings. Other greats in the game have averages around 60. He scored a century once in every three innings. Once he scored 309 runs in a day in a Test match. He dominated cricket like no other dominated any sport.

Since cricket means only `a grasshopper-like insect' to the United States and Europe (except England of course), Bradman is not considered whenever the 20th century's greatest sportsmen are chosen. But, for whom cricket means a great game, he is no less a legend than Muhammad Ali, Pele, Carl Lewis or Michael Jordan. Beyond doubt, he was one of the most extraordinary talents of the century.

But as a young boy, he did not know what to do with his talent. His school at his home-town, Bowral, near Sydney, did not have much sport. So he had to invent some sports himself. He hit a golf ball against a tank stand with a cricket stump. He loved it, and it became his favourite amusement.

``At the time it had no meaning,'' he said later. ``I was enjoying myself. It never entered my head that I was training my eyesight and movements.''

He started playing cricket seriously only at 16. Sachin Tendulkar - about whom he said, ``I feel Tendulkar plays much the same (way) as I used to play ... it's his compactness, his technique, his stroke production, it all seemed to gel as far as I am concerned ... '' - made his Test debut at that age. He scored a big triple hundred in one of his first games, and earned selection to the New South Wales team. Says former Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield, ``When he came down we all saw his superb confidence. The selectors were impressed and sent him to Adelaide and Melbourne. He scored a century at Adelaide.''

When he was just 16, he caused Bill O'Reilly, the great Australian leg-spinner whom Bradman rated as the finest bowler he ever faced, to momentarily think of a sport other than cricket. In a beautifully written article in 1978, which was published in this daily on the occasion of Bradman's 70th birthday, he recalled how he, and the rest of the Wingello bowlers, was massacred by this `jockey-sized school boy of Bowral.'

Bradman, who tore the Wingello attack to pieces, was on 234 not out at the end of the first day, and there was a full week left before the match resumed the following weekend. That gave poor Bill, 19 and so confident of his cricketing abilities, plenty of time to contemplate. ``There are a lot of better games than cricket; why worry about it?'' he tried to console himself. ``If a kid like that can skin you alive what hope have you?'' he asked himself. Happily for O'Reilly, he did not have to quit cricket, as he got the `school boy' first ball on the second day.

In November 1928, at 20, the Don made his Test debut. Cricket was never the same again.

Like in his last Test, he did not score heavily in his first. At Brisbane, against England, he was out for 18 and one, but in the next Test at Melbourne he scored his maiden hundred in the second innings, 112, after making 79 in the first innings. After hitting 40 and 58 at Adelaide, he hit another hundred at Melbourne, 123. He ended the series with 468 runs, averaging 66.86, not quite Bradmanesque.

In 1930 he went to England and plundered runs at will. The Test series turned out to be his most productive ever, as he scored a triple hundred, two double hundreds and a hundred. He scored 974 from five Test matches (seven innings) for an incredible average of 139.14.

Most memorable of that series was his first Test double hundred, 254 - his best knock, according to him - at the second Test at Lord's (``...and every ball went where I wanted it to go, until the ball that I got out.''). He made his highest Test score, 334, at Headingley in the third Test. He scored a century in a session twice during that triple hundred, and at the end of the first day of that Test, he was unbeaten on 309. He signed off the series with 232 at The Oval.

He scored 2,522 runs on that tour at an average of 100.88 with nine centuries. England's nightmare had begun. He was only 21.

The West Indies got a taste of Bradman in the Australian summer of 1930-31 - he scored a double hundred and a hundred - and the following summer, it was the turn of South Africa. He hit a hundred and two double hundreds, including a splendid 299 not out at Adelaide. He came in at nine for one and saw the last man run out at 513.

When England toured Down Under in 1932-33, its captain Douglas Jardine was determined to contain the `run-machine' at any cost. He came up with cricket's nastiest tactic ever. He asked his bowlers to aim at his body, and his quickest men Harold Larwood and Bill Voce responded with glee. Up to six short legs were employed by Jardine. `If I had stood exactly where I was, that ball would have hit me in the chest,'' said Bradman. Still in the Bodyline series, which England won, he averaged 56.57 and scored a hundred in the Melbourne Test.

The Don, however, was back at his best in the English summer of 1934, playing two brilliant knocks in the Test series - 304 at Headingley and 244 at The Oval. In 1936, he was made the Australian captain in the series against England, and he kept the job till his last Test. ``I was an inexperienced captain,'' he later said, ``and it wasn't an easy job.''

But it was a job he did well. He led Australia in 24 Tests and won 15 of them, and lost only three. Six were drawn. In 1948, he led cricket's `greatest team ever' to a tour of England. Bradman's side finished the tour unbeaten. He was nearing 40, but he still made two hundreds in the series. His last Test century, the 29th, came at Headingley, the ground where he had scored both his triple hundreds in Tests. It was a great innings as Australia chased 400 runs in a day and won.

Among his unforgettable knocks in Tests is the 234 against England in 1946 at Sydney. He came in at 159 for four, batting at an uncustomary No.6, because of a muscle strain, and added 405 for the fifth wicket with Sid Barnes, who also made 234 but it took him four hours more than Bradman.

Bradman indeed scored runs at a terrific speed. He scored 42 runs per hour, and about his 452 (for New South Wales, against Queensland, 1930) made in just over 400 minutes, he said, ``It's the speed with which you score runs...that is a very important factor. The world record score I made, that 452, was made in a little over 400 minutes.''

Bradman was a murderous striker of the ball, but he generally played his strokes along the ground. He was a relentless punisher of loose ball, and could treat even the marginally imperfect ball as a loose one. It was said that he saw the ball earlier than most batsmen did. His footwork and judgment were perfect and he had exceptional reflexes. Marvellous timing and wiry wrists gave his strokes awesome power. To be so successfully aggressive one has to have a sound defence, and he had it, plus tremendous concentration. He pursued his art with rare single- mindedness and strove always for perfection. Said Colin Cowdrey of his dedication, ``If he took to rose growing he would have been the world's greatest rose grower.'' The pull was his most lethal shot. Recalls Lala Amarnath, who led India against him in Australia in 1947-48, ``He could pull any ball from anywhere, even those going away on the off-stump. At times, I had eight men to stop that shot, and each time he hit the ball at the ankle of the fielder to prove his mastery.''

Sometimes it was said that he was not a great batsman on bad wickets, but former England captain Pelham Warner begs to differ, ``I saw him make 71 out of a total of 182 on a sticky wicket at Sydney in January 1933, and a batsman who is equipped with every stroke, superb defence, extraordinary quickness of eye and foot and immense concentration - as he is - can surely adapt himself to any wicket.''

He was a great crowd puller. Big crowds came to watch him, and grounds would be empty when he was out. Writes John Woodcock, the doyen of cricket writers, ``In every match in which he played he doubled the attendance and gave his side the equivalent of a hundred-run start; and he had a cricket brain that was second to none.''

In Tests he scored 29 centuries, including 10 double hundreds and two triple hundreds, besides 13 half-centuries. He scored 28067 runs in first class cricket with 117 hundreds at an average of 95.14. Sometimes, figures do tell the tale.

When he was out for 58 in a tour match in England in 1930, newspapers screamed, ``Bradman fails.'' There could not have been a bigger compliment.

As Australian writer Ray Robinson wrote, ``Sir Don's position at the top of all time world Test average is as changeless as the alphabet.'' He was knighted in 1949 and after his retirement he served Australian cricket as a selector and administrator. He now leads a very private life in Adelaide.

His memory is remarkable. One recalls listening to him speak vividly about his cricket and his extraordinary life in a long interview to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which was broadcast over many weeks on the good old Radio Australia, some ten years ago.

P. K. AJITH KUMAR

Kozhikode

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