Austrilia's Legends
Sir Donald George Bradman:
Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (August 27, 1908 – February 25, 2001) was an Australian cricket player who is universally regarded as the greatest batsman of all time, and is one of Australia's most popular sporting heroes. Among those who have a meaningful Test match batting average through batting in more than 20 innings, his figure of 99.94 is over 63% higher than that achieved by any other cricketer. Next among those who have batted in more than 20 innings is South African Graeme Pollock with an average of 60.97.

Born on 27 August 1908 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 in grade cricket in Sydney at the age of 18. Within a year he was representing New South Wales and within three he had made his Test debut.

Receiving some criticism in his first Ashes series in 1928–1929, he worked constantly to remove the few 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 shotmaking 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.

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

Over an international career spanning 20 years from 1928 to 1948, Bradman's statistical achievements were unparalleled. He broke scoring records for both first-class and Test cricket; his highest international score (334) stood for decades as the highest ever Test score by an Australian. It was then equalled by Mark Taylor, who declared with his score at 334 not out in what many regard as a deliberate tribute to Bradman. In 2003 it was once more equalled, then surpassed by Matthew Hayden, who fittingly went on to gain the highest score in Test cricket (380) up to that time.

He was to be unlucky against the Sri Lankans, however. When Australia played against the All-Ceylon team in Colombo (on a 'whistle stop' tour on the way to England) on 2 April 1930, Bradman was out hit wicket for the first ball bowled by N.S. Joseph, on his debut. This is supposed to be the first occasion that Bradman got out hit wicket. He missed playing them on the next two tours; but, playing All-Ceylon again on 27 March 1948 was able to score only 20 runs, being caught by R.L. de Krester bowled B.R. Heyn.

For decades, Bradman was the only player with two Test triple centuries in his career. He was joined by West Indian Brian Lara in 2004; Lara broke Hayden's record, and recorded the first Test quadruple century in history in the process of joining Bradman in this exclusive club.

Don BradmanApproaching forty years of age (most players today are retired by their mid-thirties), he returned to play cricket after second World War , leading one of the most talented teams in Australia's history. 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.

On the occasion of his last international innings, Bradman needed four runs to be able to retire with a batting average of 100, but 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 that ball because of 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 20-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." Regardless, he was given a guard of honour by players and spectators alike as he left the ground with a batting average of 99.94 from his 52 Tests, nearly double the average of any other player before or since. His average is allegedly immortalised as the post office box number of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation - "Box 9994 in your capital city".

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. The principal English exponent of Bodyline was the Nottinghamshire pace bowler Harold Larwood, and the contest between Bradman and Larwood had proved to be the focal point of the competition.

Some indication of his superlative skill was that his average for that series, 56.57, is above the career averages of all but a handful of international players in the 125-odd years of international cricket matches. Statistical analyses give some credence to the claim that Bradman dominated his sport more than Pelé, Wayne Gretzky, Ty Cobb, Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, amongst other champions of their disciplines.

the 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 had taken up squash to keep himself absolutely fit. He subsequently won the South Australian Open Squash Championship.