God’s pavilion

God’s pavilion

Every lover of cricket had somehow imagined that Donald Bradman, universally acknowledged as cricket’s greatest son, would be around to hit a century. Alas, it was not to be. Death intruded. But as the tributes poured in from every corner of the world, so did the evidence that this grand old icon will continue to live as long as cricket is played anywhere on the face of the earth. It is not difficult to understand why this is the case. Somehow Sir Donald seemed to embody all that was great, good and glorious about the funny little game.

First, there was that raw courage to take on the bowler, even one that was driven to acts of desperation in the face of batting excellence as the famous Don Bradman-Harold Larwood encounters which was, incidentally, captured in the TV series Bodyline are lasting testimony to. Hitting a historic 334 in the very first Test he played on English soil in 1930 was his reply to English arrogance.

But there was more to Bradman than just courage. There was genuine class. As those who have played with him have vouched for, Bradman’s primary objective as a batsman always was not just to stay at the pitch but to get runs. When he retired in 1949, the final tally said it all 6,996 runs had emanated from Bradman’s consummate bat. They yielded an average that only the gods could have aspired to 99.94. But there was more to Bradman than just courage and class. There was a rare capacity for hard work. Natural skills were honed to perfection and the manner in which he perfected his stroke play by practising with a softball which was then hit against a corrugated metal water tank, is now legend. But there was more to Bradman than just courage, class and hard work. There was also a natural instinct that almost anticipated the bowler. It is said that if he could read the bowler’s intention and if it was where he thought it would be, he would hit the ball for a four and, if it wasn’t, he would still push it for a single. As he once quietly observed, ‘‘I saw much better batsmen than I was. Lots of them... they just kept getting out.’’

There’s one more quality that Sir Donald possessed that has not been listed yet and which, ultimately, accounted for his lasting appeal: integrity. The frenzy in the pavilion, the public adulation that dogged him on the field, and off it, never once fooled him into imagining that he was greater than the game. Many great players who followed him into cricket’s Hall of Fame seemed to lack this, to the game’s lasting ignominy. It wasn’t surprising then that at a time when Australia went through rough patches of economic depression and social despair in the late thirties and early forties, Bradman’s compatriots looked up to him for solace and distraction. With a quick eye and flick of the wrist, with deft footwork and a bat slicing the air, he presented an inspirational figure. As it turned out, Bradman inspired not just his fellow Australians but everyone who delighted in cricket, as players and as spectators. Truly, quiet and powerful flowed The Don.