Don Bradman

Sir Donald George Bradman (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001) was an Australian cricketer widely regarded as the finest batsman ever to play the game. His record has led figures like Shane Warne to argue that Bradman was the greatest sportsperson of all time. His Test batting average of 99.94 is considered by some to be the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.

A well-known piece of Australian folklore describes how young Bradman practised alone using a cricket stump and a golf ball. He rose from playing in the bush to the Australian Test team in just over two years. Before turning 22, he had already set numerous scoring records, some of which remain unbroken, and became a national sporting hero during the depths of the Great Depression. That status only grew through the Second World War.

Over a 20-year playing career, Bradman scored so consistently that former Australian captain Bill Woodfull said he was “worth three batsmen to Australia.” The England team devised a controversial strategy called Bodyline specifically to limit his scoring. As a captain and administrator, Bradman promoted an attacking, entertaining style of cricket that drew huge crowds. He disliked the constant adulation, however, and this affected his dealings with others. The intense focus on his individual performances strained relationships with teammates, administrators, and journalists, who saw him as aloof and guarded. After a break forced by the Second World War, he made a dramatic return, captaining the “Invincibles” on an unbeaten tour of England.

Bradman was a complex, driven man who kept few close personal ties. For three decades after retiring as a player, he remained a dominant figure in the game as an administrator, selector, and writer. Even in his later, reclusive years, his opinion was highly valued, and he was still seen as a national icon. Nearly fifty years after his last Test, Prime Minister John Howard called him the “greatest living Australian” in 1997. His image has appeared on stamps and coins, and a museum dedicated to his life opened while he was still alive. On the centenary of his birth in 2008, the Royal Australian Mint issued a $5 gold coin bearing his likeness. In 2009, he was posthumously inducted as an inaugural member of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Donald George Bradman was born on 27 August 1908 in Cootamundra, New South Wales, the youngest son of George and Emily Bradman. He had a brother, Victor, and three sisters: Islet, Lilian, and Elizabeth May. Both sides of his family were of English heritage; his grandfather Charles Andrew Bradman had emigrated from Withersfield, Suffolk. During his first tour of England in 1930, the 21-year-old Bradman traced his ancestors in the region. He also had Italian lineage—one of his great-grandfathers was among the first Italians to migrate to Australia in 1826.

Bradman’s parents lived in the hamlet of Yeo Yeo, near Stockinbingal. His mother gave birth at the home of a midwife, Granny Scholz, in Cootamundra; that house is now the Bradman Birthplace Museum. Emily Bradman had come from Mittagong in the NSW Southern Highlands, and in 1911, when Donald was about two and a half, the family moved to Bowral to be closer to her family and friends, as life at Yeo Yeo was difficult. Emily, a left-arm spin bowler, had played in women’s intercolonial cricket in the 1890s.

As a youth, Bradman practised batting constantly. He invented a solo game using a cricket stump as a bat and a golf ball. Behind the family home, a water tank sat on a curved brick stand. When he hit the ball into the curved brick facing, it rebounded at high speed and unpredictable angles, and he would try to hit it again. This drill sharpened his timing and reflexes. In formal matches, he scored his first century at age 12, an unbeaten 115 for Bowral Public School against Mittagong High School.

During the 1920–21 season, Bradman acted as scorer for the local Bowral team, captained by his uncle George Whatman. In October 1920, he filled in when the team was short, scoring 37 not out and 29 not out on debut. That season, his father took him to the Sydney Cricket Ground to watch the fifth Ashes Test. There, Bradman formed an ambition, telling his father: “I shall never be satisfied until I play on this ground.” He left school in 1922 and worked for a local real estate agent who gave him time off for sport. He gave up cricket for tennis for two years but returned in 1925–26.

Bradman became a regular for Bowral, and several outstanding performances caught the attention of Sydney newspapers. Playing on matting-over-concrete pitches against other rural towns in the Berrima District competition, he made 234 against Wingello, a team that included future Test bowler Bill O’Reilly. In the competition final against Moss Vale, spread over five consecutive Saturdays, he scored 320 not out. The following Australian winter, the ageing Australian team lost the Ashes in England, and several Test players retired. The New South Wales Cricket Association began searching for new talent.