Sir Donald George Bradman was the greatest cricketer of all time, dominating all bowlers to an extent that no one else has done before or since. He played every shot in the coaching manual and improvised several of his own. His concentration, focus, footwork, timing and eye-hand coordination were beyond description.
The speed at which he scored his runs and the fact that he scored a century every third time he batted meant that he was the greatest drawcard that the cricketing world has ever seen. The Don was a living legend for the majority of his playing career.
But there was more to Sir Donald than just batting. His captaincy was renowned for its tactical excellence. He was an Australian selector, usually chairman, for 34 years. He was also Chairman of the Australian Board of Cricket Control. His book, “The Art of Cricket", is the finest coaching manual. He had the most incisive mind of any cricketer or administrator the cricketing world has ever seen.
Sir Donald came to prominence in the game as a 19-year-old from the New South Wales country town of Bowral when he scored 118 in his first innings of first-class cricket. A year later he had his first test century against England. In the following year his batting genius flowered when he scored 452 not out for New South Wales against Queensland. Any remaining doubters were silenced during Australia’s tour of England in 1930 when he rewrote a large percentage of the batting records in Wisden. He was the sport’s youngest megastar, and its greatest since Dr WG Grace, and he had just turned 22.
During England’s global expansion, cricket had become a benign ally of imperial politics and culture. In Australia there had always been strong undertones that England merely patronised her colonial sons. Hence young Bradman’s triumphs lifted the heart of the entire nation.
A particular edge had also been lent to cricket in the late 1920s and early 1930s by the Great Depression, which plunged hundreds of thousands of workers throughout Australia into deep poverty. In these desperate times, the emergence of a sporting star was one of few reasons for a boost in public spirit and morale. It also coincided with the arrival of radio broadcasting and the film newsreel, which became the basis of a new, massive audience for sport.
As a young man Sir Donald was talented in a multitude of sports. He defeated an Australian Davis Cup tennis player to win the South Australian squash title. He played exhibition matches against the world’s greatest billiard player, Waiter Lindrum. He was a low-handicap golfer and there are even a few photos of him stripped to the waist executing a reverse headlock on amateur middleweight wrestling champion, Jim Deakin. Jack Crawford, an Australian Davis Cup player who played against him thought that “with a little practice, Bradman would be a match for anyone in England or Australia outside the top ten. “ Journalists, photographers, broadcasters and newsreel cameramen covered all these events.
If he had any spare time he played the piano and made several recordings. One of his compositions, ‘Every Day is a Rainbow Day for Me', was recorded at Columbia’s Sydney studios in 1930.
On a private cricket tour of Canada and America in 1932, which was also his honeymoon, he was
lionised in Hollywood by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ‘
Boris Karloff and Ronald Colman. In New York he sat through a baseball game with the immortal ‘Sultan of Swat', Babe Ruth. Ruth is said to have confided to Sir Donald that, “us little fellows can hit ‘em harder than the big ones."
Throughout his life h e believed that i t was his duty to answer all the correspondence that he received. In the 1930s this amounted to as many as 400 letters a day. As late as 1990 he was still receiving a mailbag containing approximately 4,000 letters a week. The South Australian Government has always arranged for the postage.
Australians have always cherished people from the country who become celebrities on the world stage, and Bradman-the boy from the bush, ‘Our Don Bradman'-is the quintessential Aussie hero.
Sir Donald George Bradman spent over 70 years in the public spotlight yet still maintained his conspicuous personal modesty. Like his batting, few ever saw him rattled. There was a quiet dignity about him, which had its roots in mutual respect, for others as well as himself.
Australians, and the world family of cricket, will never forget the boy from Bowral.