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Donald Bradman

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   Australian Flag
   Sir Donald Bradman
   Australia (AUS)
   Sir Donald Bradman
   Batting style        Right-handed batsman (RHB)
   Bowling type         Occasional right arm leg spin
                        Tests First-class
   Matches              52    234
   Runs scored          6996  28067
   Batting average      99.94 95.14
   100s/50s             29/13 117/69
   Top score            334   452*
   Balls bowled         160   2114
   Wickets              2     36
   Bowling average      36.00 37.97
   5 wickets in innings 0     0
   10 wickets in match  0     0
   Best bowling         1/8   3/35
   Catches/ stumpings   32/0  131/1

   Test debut: 30 November 1928
   Last Test: 14 August 1948
   Source:

   Sir Donald George Bradman, AC ( August 27, 1908 — February 25, 2001),
   often called The Don, was an Australian cricketer who is universally
   regarded as the greatest batsman of all time, and is one of Australia's
   most popular sporting heroes. His Test batting average of 99.94 is by
   some measures the greatest statistical performance of all time in any
   major sport. By way of comparison, the second, third and fourth best
   Test averages are 76.56, 60.97 and 60.83. This disparity between the
   best and the second best exceeds that in other sports, and suggests
   that Bradman may be considered the greatest athlete of all time.

Cricket career

Early years

   Born in Cootamundra, New South Wales, but raised in Bowral (where the
   Bradman Museum and Bradman Oval are located), Bradman practiced
   obsessively during his youth. At home he invented his own one-man
   cricket game using a stump and a golf ball. A water tank stood on a
   brick stand behind the Bradman home on a covered and paved area. When
   hit into the curved brick stand, the ball would rebound at high speed
   and varying angles. This form of practice helped him to develop
   split-second speed and accuracy.

   After a brief dalliance with tennis he dedicated himself to cricket,
   playing for local sides before attracting sufficient attention to be
   drafted into grade cricket in Sydney at the age of 18. Within a year he
   was selected for New South Wales, and within three years he made his
   Test debut.

Pre-war

   After receiving some criticism in his first Ashes series in 1928–1929
   he worked to remove perceived weaknesses in his game, and by the time
   of the Bodyline series he was without peer as a batsman. Possessing a
   great stillness whilst awaiting the delivery, his shot making was based
   on a combination of excellent vision, speed of both thought and
   footwork and a decisive, powerful bat motion with a pronounced
   follow-through. Technically his play was almost flawless, strong on
   both sides of the wicket with only his sternest critics noting a
   tendency for his backlift to be slightly angled toward the slip cordon.

   In the English summer of 1930 he scored 974 runs in only seven innings
   over the course of the five Ashes Tests, the highest individual total
   in any Test series before or since. Bradman himself rated his 254 in
   the second Test at Lord's as his best ever innings. His 334 in the
   third Test at Headingley, of which he scored a Test record 309 runs on
   one day, was then the highest individual score in Test cricket
   (surpassed by Walter Hammond in 1933 but not equalled by an Australian
   batsman until Mark Taylor declared with his score at 334 not out in
   1998, in what many regard as a deliberate tribute to Bradman; Matthew
   Hayden subsequently broke the record, scoring 380 in 2003).

   Bradman so dominated the game that special bowling tactics, known as
   fast leg theory or Bodyline, regarded by many as unsporting and
   dangerous, were devised by England captain Douglas Jardine to reduce
   his dominance in a series of international matches against England in
   the Australian summer of 1932–1933. Orthodox leg-theory was first used
   in English cricket as far back as 1910 principaly as a run restricting
   technique bowled by slow bowlers. Jardine's take on this proven idea
   was to use two fast bowlers, Larwood & Voce, in tandem to bowl at leg
   stump whilst pitching the ball short - effectively bowling at the
   batsman rather than the stumps, hence the name given to the tactic by
   the Australian media, Bodyline. The principal English exponent of
   Bodyline was the Nottinghamshire pace bowler Harold Larwood, and the
   contest between Bradman and Larwood was to prove to be the focal point
   of the competition. Some indication of his superlative skill was that
   his average for that series, 56.57, is still higher than the career
   averages of all but a dozen or so international Test cricketers. Due to
   a dispute over his newspaper reporting role, he missed the 1st Test.

   Further evidence of his supreme athletic skills was revealed when
   Bradman missed the 1935–36 tour to South Africa due to illness. During
   his absence from cricket, Bradman took up squash to keep himself fit.
   He subsequently won the South Australian Open Squash Championship.

   Jack Ledward, a Victorian batsman, recalls Bradman's footwork in a
   descrption of a pre-WW II innings played by the Don against Victoria.
   After playing himself in, Bradman confidently announced that he was
   about to conduct "a round-up". Ledward watched in amazement as Bradman
   hit each ball of every over to every fielder in anti-clockwise
   succession — starting with Ledward at slip and concluding with
   fine-leg, disregarding the line and length of each individual delivery
   .

   Despite occasional battles with illness, he dominated world cricket
   throughout the 1930s, and is credited with raising the spirit of a
   nation suffering under the privations of the Great Depression.

Post-war

   Don Bradman
   Enlarge
   Don Bradman

   Approaching forty years of age, he returned to play cricket after World
   War II, leading one of the most talented teams in Australia's history,
   despite being at an age at which most cricketers are long retired. In
   his farewell 1948 tour of England the team he led, dubbed " The
   Invincibles", went undefeated throughout the tour, a feat unmatched
   before or since.

   Bradman emerged for what was his last Test innings, at The Oval, with
   his Test batting average above 100. He needed only 4 runs to keep it in
   three figures, but he was dismissed for nought (in cricketing parlance,
   "a duck") by spin bowler Eric Hollies. Applauded onto the pitch by both
   teams, it was sometimes claimed that he was unable to see the ball due
   to the tears welling in his eyes, a claim Bradman always dismissed as
   sentimental nonsense. "I knew it would be my last Test match after a
   career spanning twenty years", he said, "but to suggest I got out as
   some people did, because I had tears in my eyes, is to belittle the
   bowler and is quite untrue." He was given a guard of honour by the
   players and spectators alike as he left the ground with a batting
   average of 99.94 from his 52 Tests.

Statistical assessment

   Over an international career spanning 20 years from 1928 to 1948,
   Bradman's batting achievements are unparalleled. His career statistics
   are far superior to those of any other batsman, and a testament to his
   unusual powers of concentration. He broke scoring records for both
   first-class and Test cricket. The final batting average achieved by
   Bradman was, famously, 99.94. This record (approximately 65% higher
   than that achieved by anyone else) was the product of a career of
   astonishing consistent high scoring and a final, ironic incident of
   rare failure.

Creation of the statistic

   Toward the end of a phenomenal, record-breaking career, Bradman came to
   the wicket at The Oval for what turned out to be the last time in a
   Test match against England in 1948. It was known that he would not play
   in England again and the England side (and crowd) gave him three
   cheers.

   At the time, Bradman had scored 6,996 runs in Test cricket from 79
   innings, with 10 not outs. His average was thus 101.4 and a score of
   just 4 would give him an average of exactly 100, having scored 173 not
   out in the first innings of the match. In his second innings, however,
   he was bowled by a Eric Hollies' googly for a duck (0).

   This failure left Bradman with an average of 99.94 and, although it was
   not clear at the time that it was his last match, (merely his last in
   England) he did not play Test cricket again.

   A story quickly gained currency that Bradman was unable to see the ball
   due to tears in his eyes. Wisden itself in its match report (1949)
   states "Evidently deeply touched by the enthusiastic reception, Bradman
   survived one ball." (Wisden 1949, pub. Unwin Bros., p.252)

   Bradman himself dismissed this; "I knew it would be my last Test match
   after a career spanning twenty years but to suggest I got out as some
   people did, because I had tears in my eyes, is to belittle the bowler
   and is quite untrue."( )

Context

   In a sport that revels in statistics, the figure 99.94 has become one
   of cricket's most famous, iconic statistics.

   Contextualising Bradman's achievement is easier than is usual for
   comparisons of cricket statistics across the eras. Compared to his
   average of almost 100, no other player who has played more than 20 Test
   match innings has finished his career with a Test average of more than
   61 (see the list of highest Test career batting averages).

   Bradman scored centuries at a rate of better than one every three
   innings. He converted very nearly a third of his centuries into double
   hundreds, and his total of 37 first-class double hundreds is the most
   achieved by any batsman. The next highest total is Walter Hammond's,
   who scored 36 double hundreds but played in exactly 400 more matches
   than Bradman's 234.

   For decades, Bradman was the only player to have scored two Test triple
   centuries (both against England at Headingley, 334 in 1930 and 304 in
   1934). This feat was equalled by West Indian Brian Lara in 2004 (Lara
   has, however, played more than twice as many Tests). Bradman very
   nearly reached 300 on another occasion, his last partner being run out
   when he was on 299 not out against South Africa in 1932. Bradman, Lara
   and Bill Ponsford are the only players with three first class scores of
   over 350.

   In a biographical essay in Wisden, he is hailed as "the greatest
   phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball
   games".

   In The Best of the Best, statistician Charles Davis argues that
   Bradman's performance is the most dominant of any player of any major
   sport. He calculates the number of standard deviations above the mean
   that several prominent individual sporting statistics lie. The top
   performers in various sports are:
      Athlete       Sport        Statistic     Standard deviations
   Bradman        Cricket    Batting average   4.4
   Pelé           Soccer     Goals per game    3.7
   Ty Cobb        Baseball   Batting average   3.6
   Jack Nicklaus  Golf       Major titles      3.5
   Michael Jordan Basketball Points per game   3.4
   Björn Borg     Tennis     Grand slam titles 3.2

   In order to post a similarly dominant career statistic as Bradman, a
   baseball batter would need a career batting average of 0.392, while a
   basketballer would need to score 43 points per game.

Personal

   Bradman married his childhood sweetheart Jessie, and they had three
   children, Ross, John and Shirley. Ross died only 36 hours after birth.
   Jessie died in 1997. Bradman, an intensely private person, was regarded
   as aloof even by team-mates, particularly in later years. A strict
   adherent to the Church of England, he had occasionally been accused of
   anti-Catholicism in his actions as captain and selector, but this was
   against a background of widespread sectarian prejudice in Australia.

   Despite his sporting abilities, Bradman was declared unfit for service
   in the Second World War, and was spared the dangers of fighting for
   King & Country.

   He spoke out against smoking in sport, which was very unusual for the
   time. His books on cricket technique and tactics are regarded as
   classics.

After cricket

   Bradman walking out to bat in the third Test against England at the
   Melbourne Cricket Ground. His innings of 270 won the match for
   Australia.
   Enlarge
   Bradman walking out to bat in the third Test against England at the
   Melbourne Cricket Ground. His innings of 270 won the match for
   Australia.

   After retiring from playing cricket, Bradman continued working as a
   stockbroker. Allegations that he had acted improperly during the
   collapse of his employer's firm and the subsequent establishment of his
   own, made behind closed doors until his death, were publicised in
   November 2001. He became heavily involved in cricket administration,
   serving as a selector for the national team for nearly 30 years. He was
   selector (and acknowledged as a force urging the players of both teams
   to play entertaining, attacking cricket) for the famous Australia–West
   Indies Test series of 1960–61.

   As a member of the Australian Cricket Board, and, reportedly, their de
   facto leader, he was also involved in negotiations with the World
   Series Cricket schism in the late 1970s. Ian Chappell, former Test
   captain and selected to lead the rebel Australian side, has stated that
   he places much responsibility for the split on Bradman, who in his
   opinion had forgotten his own difficulties with the cricket authorities
   of the time.

   He was also famous for answering innumerable letters from cricket fans
   across the world, which he continued to do until well into his
   eighties. Bradman died in 2001, in Adelaide, aged 92.

Honours

   Bradman's career performance graph.
   Enlarge
   Bradman's career performance graph.

   Bradman was selected as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year
   in 1931. He was awarded a knighthood in 1949, and a Companion of the
   Order of Australia (Australia's highest civil honour) in 1979. In 1996,
   he was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame as one of the
   ten inaugural members.

   In 2000, Bradman was selected by a distinguished panel of experts as
   one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Century. Each member of the panel
   selected five cricketers, and Bradman was the only player to be named
   by all 100 correspondents. The other four cricketers selected for the
   honour were Sir Garfield Sobers (90 votes), Sir Jack Hobbs (30 votes),
   Shane Warne (27 votes) and Sir Vivian Richards (25 votes). Some members
   of the panel commented that two of the five votes cast would be
   effectively wasted, as they had to be cast for Bradman and Sobers. In
   2002, the Wisden rated Bradman as the greatest ever Test batsman.
   Tendulkar, Gary Sobers, Vivian Richards were placed at 2nd, 3rd and 4th
   positions respectively. Bradman's innings of 270 in the third Test
   against England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was rated by Wisden as
   the greatest ever Test innings.

Trivia

   Bradman is immortalised in three popular songs of very different styles
   and eras, "Our Don Bradman", a jaunty 1930s ditty by Jack O'Hagan ,
   "Bradman" by Paul Kelly in the 1980s, and in "Sir Don", an emotional
   tribute by Australian Singer John Williamson at Bradman's Memorial
   Service.

   The story of the Bodyline series was embroidered in a 1984 television
   drama mini-series in which Hugo Weaving played Douglas Jardine and Gary
   Sweet played Don Bradman.

   The name "Bradman" is now protected in Australia, in that it cannot be
   used as a part of a trademark except for government-approved
   institutions linked to Donald Bradman.

   A main arterial road in Adelaide, South Australia, formerly Burbridge
   Road, was renamed Sir Donald Bradman Drive.

   An often repeated story is that General Manager of the Australian
   Broadcasting Corporation and personal friend Sir Charles Moses asked
   that Bradman's Test batting average be immortalised as the post office
   box number of the broadcaster - "Box 9994 in your capital city". There
   is some debate about this, but ABC sports host Karen Tighe confirms
   that the number was in fact chosen in honour of Bradman , and the claim
   is also supported by Alan Eason in his book The A-Z of Bradman.

   Bradman played in several nations but never actually played on
   Australia's next door neighbour New Zealand's soil

   After Bradman passed away, the Australian Government produced
   commemorative 20 cent coins.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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