His legend lives on

IF HE had been alive, Sir Donald George Bradman would have been 93 on August 27. But he passed away early this year, leaving behind a legacy which should keep inspiring generations of cricketers to play well and strive for excellence. Bradman may be dead but his legend lives on. Like Julius Caesar, the Don remains as powerful in his death as he was during his playing days and in his retirement, too.

Old-timers sometimes tend to look down on the youth of the new millennium. Cricket lovers amongst them in particular are inclined to boast that they saw Bradman bat, that they were witness to many of his tours de force, that they grew up with the Bradman legend and hence they are fortunate and the new generation cricket aficionados simply unlucky.

Maybe they have a point there; but only just. Young cricket buffs may never have watched Bradman in action but they know as much about him and his heroics as do the greybeards. For so much has been said, more written, about the most famous Aussie of all who wrought a number of miracles wielding ``a carved piece of wood'' in the only manner he knew - majestic. As if that were not enough, any prolific run-scorer who appears on the firmament is inevitably, though unnecessarily and unwisely, compared with actually the incomparable Bradman.

Why, Sachin Tendulkar's exploits have tempted many, including some die-hard Australians, to bracket him with Bradman. Of course, the tiny Indian's style may be similar to that of the Aussie (the Don himelf admitted this and, what is more, he was reported to have included Tendulkar in his all-time great World XI), but apart from this fancied assumption Bradman stands head and shoulders above Tendulkar, not only in the matter of staggering aggregate and average befitting a fairy-tale hero. In fact, truly modest as he is, Tendulkar will be the first to endorse this.

The point is all this only enhances Bradman's exalted status as a batsman. While oldies continue to go ga ga over him, youngsters keep marvelling at the man and his phenomenal feats. But the admiration of both parties is the same. And so are the charm and fascination of Bradman's unique saga of success for them. Also, both the old and the young are bound to agree that Bradman has been the greatest batsman the game has ever seen.

Now that Bradman has passed into ages, the old and young are equally sad because he was such a rare cricketer and rarer willow-wielder, one who gave pleasure to thousands of old girls with his magnificent batsmanship and stirring deeds, one who mesmerised millions of young folks by the magnitude of his mind- boggling achievements.Perhaps no other sporting icon ever triggered so much interest and passion in successive generations of sports enthusiasts. The very subject Bradman continues to attract any cricket follower, lay or knowledgeable, even five decades after the great man called it a day, with the English leggie Eric Hollies spoiling his swansong, reducing his Test career average to a mere 99.94!

Eric, a talented bowler no doubt, played 13 Tests for England with moderate success but his only moment of fame and thus a place in history came when he clean-bowled Bradman for the most famous duck in the annals of the heavyweight division of cricket, at The Oval. Bradman needed just 4 runs, in his farewell innings, to take his Test average to the magic number of 100.

The first ball was a leg-break which the master batsman, leading his country for the last time, played with a dead bat. The second, a googly of perfect length, did the maestro in. Bradman turned and looked at the fallen pegs and walked slowly from the field before a stunned audience, a crowd that had greeted him with tumultuous applause, culminating in three cheers by the England team led by Norman Yardley. They all stood up to cheer the hero all the way to the pavilion.

A fantastic career thus ended in an anticlimax and universal disappointment. The game that had given him so much had denied him at the very last appearance, said Jack Fingleton. The legendary broadcaster John Arlott was on the mike when the unexpected occurred. His commentary, so vivid, said it all: Bradman plays forward and it goes in the general direction of the Houses of Parliament... It doesn't go that far, of course, but just to Watkins at silly mid-off... Hollies again pitches it up and ... he's bowled him... Bradman, bowled Hollies, 0. Well, what can you say in such circumstances? Arlott then surmised that following the overwhelming reception he received from the English fans and players on his entrance at 5.30 p.m. on the first evening, Bradman might have had tears in his eyes with the emotion of it all. But Jack Crapp, first slip and close witness to the whole drama, was to tell Frank Keating, sportswriter par excellence, years later: Get away with you. That bugger Bradman never had a tear in his eye throughout his whole life.

It was the same Arlott who, at the end of his tour account, Gone to the Test Match, summed up Bradman's batsmanship with a terrific descriptive paragraph. Wrote the master of cricket prose: In 1948, 40 years old, Bradman was still playing strokes impossible to any other cricketer in the world. He stood at the crease perfectly immobile until the ball was on its way to him, then his steps flowed like quicksilver out of trouble or into position to attack. He could still pull the ball outside the off stump accurately wide of mid-on's right hand to avoid a packed off-side field. He still played the ball off his back foot past mid-off before that fieldsman could bend to it. He still hit through the covers with the grace of a swooping bird. He could cut and glance, drive, hook, and pull, and he could play unbelievably late in defence. Those who had never seen Bradman bat until 1948 saw a great batsman; those who knew his batting saw a new greatness.

Bradman never liked to play second fiddle to anybody, for he was invariably the master. How the bowlers must have loathed him, despaired against him but grudgingly admiring him! That Douglas Jardine had to invent and then put into practise the Bodyline tactics with a view to curbing Bradman's awesome scoring added a dimension of underhand persecution of an innocent prodigy which fed the legend. Of course, Bodyline was brutally effective in that it cut Bradman's aggregate to a mortal 396 runs at 56.57 in four Tests!

The genesis of the Bodyline scheme was the alleged lack of relish Bradman had displayed in coping with short-pitched bowling from Harold Larwood when the pitch had been enlivened by rain at The Oval in 1930. Bradman and contemporary reports, however, had always denied or ignored such an explanation. His response to the tactics was to draw away to the leg-side in order to play strokes to the empty off-side field, arguing that an unprecedented form of attack called for radical solutions.

A Bradman hundred was always taken for granted. He was so used to scoring centuries almost at will. On every third visit to the crease he made a hundred. To be precise, Bradman registered 117 centuries in 338 innings. He was such a big innings player that even a 100 from his blade was often considered to be a low score. For example, three times did Bradman score a double hundred at Worcester to commence his tours of England before World War II which robbed him of some of his precious years. So when he made ONLY 107 at the same venue in 1948, the local Berrows Evening News ran bills trumpeting BRADMAN GOES CHEAPLY.

Actually, it was not when he hit up a ton but when he scored a blob that it created more ripples. It was a field-day for the headline writers in the newspaper offices who would take as much delight in a Bradman duck as would Australia's opponents. But then he failed to open his account in only 16 innings out of 338 in his first-class career. He made one duck in every 21 innings. His career spanned over 21 years - 1928 to 1948 - meaning Bradman was out for no score less than once a year or, to be more exact, 0.76 times. Alec Bedser is the only bowler to have dismissed Bradman twice without scoring. And that too in Tests.

So dazzling was Bradman's popularity that it was often very disconcerting for the batsmen who followed him at the wicket. When he was dismissed, a large section of the crowd would file out of the ground. And he was just as popular off the field also. Brian Stoddart noted that Bradman became a god-like figure in the 1930s; his trips across the country were like those of a saint; people made a pilgrimage to see him. Derriman Philip added that Bradman was the object of hero-worship almost amounting to idolatory.

William Pollock, an English journalist who described Australia of the 1930s as Bradman mad, had commented on the sex appeal of Bradman: women in particular, who knew nothing of the game, flocked to see him. Even in England women fought to get near him, to kiss him or touch his sleeve. However, his sweetheart was Jessie Menzies with whom he lived a happy and long married life of over 60 years. When she passed away in the late 1990s, Bradman was a broken man, as he admitted to yours truly in a personal letter. Interestingly, her death attracted international headlines. Obituary notices were publishd in many leading newspapers of the cricket world because she was, after all, the wife of a legend. Bradman had tremendous regard and respect for her. He was always very proud of his very long and successful married life.

For a man who taught himself the skills of cricket by hitting a golf ball, Bradman was a master golfer, too. He was so talented he could easily have become a professional golfer. Even in his old age Bradman was a regular visitor to The Royal Adelaide Golf Club. He could play golf hours on end. It was quite a sight to see him in baggy grey flannels and to watch him chip and drive, to see his iron-play long and short, to see him putt - the forward defensive. He would middle everything, just like when he wielded the willow, a satisfying, clean ping to each shot.

Whatever his detractors may have said and written, Bradman had been charm and courtesy in extreme, a fact which sometimes reflected even in his letters to his friends and fans. For all his adult life, Bradman was meticulous in responding personally to correspondence from around the globe.

HARESH PANDYA

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