Don Bradman has been an unusual victim all his life. He faced a barrage of criticisms from his contemporaries for reasons that were never fully substantiated. He was criticized for being unsocial. Yes, Bradman hardly ever went to the pub with the boys. The fact is that he was a strict teetotaller. Even beer he abhorred. The only exception, that too very rarely, would be to have a glass of wine in an ambience of Western classical music.

Some of Bradman’s team-mates alleged that he utilized his image to reap huge financial dividends. The truth was that he being the greatest ever batsman in the world induced sponsors and influential people to make a beeline towards him. Bradman never went out of his way to curry favour with anyone; rather he accepted, on his own highly-principled terms, whatever was offered to him.

Bradman was thought to be arrogant. A massive hullabaloo was made of Bradman’s refusal to meet Lord Tennyson, the former England captain. Tennyson, who never had a high regard for Bradman’s batting ability, once went across to the Australian dressing room to meet Bradman at the end of a day’s game. Bradman, who had just returned to the pavilion after scoring his customary century, informed that he did not wish to meet anyone as he was resting his limbs.

Whatever he did or achieved came in for vindictive verbal reprisals. When he declined to play a Test match because of illness, he was supposed to be avoiding for fear of failure. When he changed his technique to play deliveries directed at his body, he was supposed to be a coward. If he was scoring heavily and consistently, as he invariably did, he was supposed to be hankering for individual records and personal glory. Whenever his team defeated opponents, it was claimed that he had no mercy for the opposition. Bradman never got a moment’s rest during his playing career that stretched for two decades, from 1928 to 1948. He was perpetually bombarded with vitriol and worse.

Great feat

Despite all the criticism, the image of the man hardly suffered around the world. In Australia, he was voted the most popular personality ahead of prime ministers and film stars. People all over the cricketing fraternity remembered not only the phenomenal numerical superiority of the man but also the softer elements of his character. He allowed young Bill Edrich to reach the milestone of 1,000 runs in May 1938. If Australia had batted on, Middlesex would have had no scope to bat and Edrich would have had no opportunity to reach the coveted target.

Bradman’s was an amazing career. In just 80 innings, he scored no less than 29 centuries which means for every third visit to the pitch he would get a hundred! These centuries, however, also include double hundreds and two triple centuries. An unique quality of his career has been that his failures invariably attracted attention. So very few were those that “Bradman fails” actually became a headline! It is doubtful whether any other sportsman has ever had such publicity for failing.

The greatest tribute paid by the cricket community to Sir Don was the conception, formulation and application of the ‘bodyline’ theory. The objective of ‘bodyline’ — aim fast, rising deliveries at the batsman’s body — was to instil fear in him. If the batsman did not lose his wicket out of sheer fright, then he would be exposed to serious injury. The aim was thus to intimidate. The target was to achieve victory by whatever means. The history of cricket has never before or after seen anything as dangerous or as disgusting. Cricket during the ‘bodyline’ series was no longer a sport to be enjoyed, but a war to be won.

Since Bradman’s remarkable consistency and high speed of scoring could not be restrained by normal cricketing strategies and techniques, ‘bodyline’ bowling was developed to bring him down to mortal levels.