Sir Donald Bradman - Biography, Achievements and Quotes

Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest Test batsman of all time. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is often cited as statistically the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.
The story that the young Bradman practised alone with a cricket stump and a golf ball is part of Australian folklore. Bradman's meteoric rise from bush cricket to the Australian Test team took just over two years. Before his 22nd birthday, he had set many records for high scoring, some of which still stand, and became Australia's sporting idol at the height of the Great Depression.
During a 20-year playing career, Bradman consistently scored at a level that made him, in the words of former Australia captain Bill Woodfull, "worth three batsmen to Australia". A controversial set of tactics, known as Bodyline, was specifically devised by the England team to curb his scoring. As a captain and administrator, Bradman was committed to attacking, entertaining cricket; he drew spectators in record numbers. He hated the constant adulation, however, and it affected how he dealt with others. The focus of attention on his individual performances strained relationships with some team-mates, administrators and journalists, who thought him aloof and wary. Following an enforced hiatus due to the Second World War, he made a dramatic comeback, captaining an Australian team known as "The Invincibles" on a record-breaking unbeaten tour of England.
A complex, highly driven man, not given to close personal relationships, Bradman retained a pre-eminent position in the game by acting as an administrator, selector and writer for three decades following his retirement. Even after he became reclusive in his declining years his opinion was highly sought, and his status as a national icon was still recognised—more than 50 years after his retirement as a Test player, in 2001, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard called him the "greatest living Australian". Bradman's image has appeared on postage stamps and coins, and a museum dedicated to his life was opened while he was still living. On the centenary of his birth, 27 August 2008, the Royal Australian Mint issued a $5 commemorative gold coin with Bradman's image, and on 19 November 2009, he was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Achievements & Facts about Sir Donald Bradman

• He was the youngest of five children to George and Emily Bradman, following sisters Lilian, Islet and May, and brother Victor.
• Don Bradman once scored 100 runs in 3 overs. The match was played in the Blue Mountains town of Blackheath between Blackheath and Lithgow to commemorate the opening of their concrete wicket. Bradman and his New South Wales team-mate...
• Don and Jessie Bradman were married in St Paul’s Church in the Sydney suburb of Burwood on 30th April, 1932. Their honeymoon was unusual with Mrs Bradman accompanying her husband and several other cricket players on a tour to the United States and Canada.
• The Bradman surname originated when his grandfather was christened as Bradman instead of the more commonly used Bradnam.
• Don was born at a nursing home at 89 Adams Street, Cootamundra, 320km south-west of Sydney, on August 27th, 1908.
• He was delivered by midwife 'Grannie' Scholz.
• When Don was two years of age, the family moved to a weatherboard house in Shepherd St, Bowral.
• He started kindergarten in September 1913, aged 5.
• He started at the Bowlral school the following year.
• He sang at the Kangaloon concert on August 24, 1920, three days before his eighth birthday.
• By 1948 Don Bradman was reaching the end of his cricket career. He was urged to go on one last tour to Britain and reluctantly agreed. His team were a formidable group of youth and experience boasting players such as all-rounder Keith Miller.
• In 1934 Bradman joined the Australian team for his second tour to England. He had been feeling unwell in the lead-up to the series but he and his doctors couldn’t define what was ailing him. Throughout the tour he suffered further ill-health.
• Don Bradman was the first Australian to hit 100 First-Class centuries. Batting on the Sydney Cricket Ground on 15 November 1947, he was on 99 runs when Bradman hit Indian leg-spin bowler Gogumal Kishenchand to the leg-side for a single.
• Don Bradman holds the world highest Test batting average of 99.94 runs per innings. The next closest is South African Graeme Pollock on 60.97. More than any other statistic this measures how superior Bradman is to all Test cricketers.
• Don Bradman captained the Australian Test Team from 1936-37 until 1948. Of those 24 Test matches Australia won 15 times and lost only 3 Tests.
• Sir Donald Bradman contributed greatly to the administration of the game after his retirement from cricket in 1949. A constant and passionate observer of the game he used his influence to maintain the game’s appeal for the Australian public...
• On January 1, 1949 just prior to his last First-Class match, it was announced that Don Bradman has been awarded a Knighthood in recognition of his services to cricket. In March of that year the Governor-General, Mr W.J. McKell conferred the award...
• In 1925-26 the Bowral Cricket Club played Moss Vale in the Final of the local competition. Don Bradman’s mother, Emily, promised him a new bat if he scored a hundred in the match. Bradman responded by hitting 300 runs, a district record...
• Don Bradman was also a part-time leg-spin bowler who bowled regularly in the local competition for Bowral. In Grade and First-Class cricket it was not uncommon to see him take the ball especially early in his career.
• Don Bradman never felt entirely comfortable with his war record as he spent much of the conflict battling a muscle disorder which prevented him serving in any prominent theatre of war. This was made all the more poignant.
• On October 5, 1926, at the age of 18, Bradman was invited to attend NSW state training. He also agreed to play Sydney grade cricket for St. George.
• On 27 November, 1926, Bradman turned out for St George for the first time, against Petersham, and scored 110 in as many minutes.
• In 1927, Bradman was selected to play Sheffield Shield for NSW. In his first game of first class cricket on December 16, 1927, he scored 118 against South Australia on the Adelaide Oval.
• He became the 20th Australian to score a century on first class debut.
• He left home in 1928 to live in Sydney.
• In November 1928, he scored 87 and 132 not out against the touring MCC side.
• At the age of 20, he was selected in the Test team to play in the First Test against England in Brisbane.
• Bradman first heard his name announced in the Australian Test team on radio station 2FC.
• He scored 18 and one and was made 12th man for the Second Test at the SCG _ the only time he was dropped from the Test XI in a 20 year career.
• In only his fourth Test innings, he scored 112 in the Third Test against England at the MCG.
• Bradman's highest score in first class cricket was 452 not out for New South Wales against Queensland at the SCG in January 1930.
• On the 1930 tour he began with 236 against Worcester, making him the youngest overseas player to score a double century in England.
• On tour he scored six double-centuries, ten centuries and fifteen half-centuries and scored almost 3000 runs at an average of 98.66.
• His innings of 334 at Headingley included 309 runs in a single day _ an achievement that won the award for the single most outstanding performance by an Australian male athlete in the 1988 Sports Australia Bi-centenary awards.
• Bradman played only one series against South Africa, finishing with 806 runs at an average of 201.50.
• Bradman met American baseball star ``Babe'' Ruth at Yankee Stadium, New York in 1932. He was on his honeymoon and part of an Arthur Mailey tour of the US and Canada.
• He batted 80 times against England, the West Indies, South Africa and India for 6996 runs at that average of 99.94 and  made 29 Test hundreds.
• Discounting his 10 not outs and his multiple hundreds, this means Bradman exceeded the century more often than every third time he went out to bat.
• Bradman made 12 Test double-centuries or more, with 334 and 304 against England and 299 not out against South Africa the highest.
• Yet the cricket career of Sir Donald Bradman cannot be measured in mere facts and figures. The Don gave enjoyment not to thousand of people, but to millions.
• His failure to do so proves to them that even the greatest in the game isn't as great as the game itself.
• In the almost half a century since that day, The Don himself lost no sleep over the most famous "blob" in cricket. The batting feats that preceded it are beyond the reach of any other cricketer.
• Don Bradman used bats produced by Yorkshire firm William Sykes & Sons throughout his career (from 1929) until the Second World War when the company was taken over by Slazengers. In 1929 shortly after Bradman scored the then highest First-Class innings...
• After scoring a century in the First Test of his first overseas tour, Don Bradman resolved to do well in the Second Test which would be his debut at Lord’s, the home of cricket. Coming in at 3.30pm on the second day he took to the bowling.
• Apart from cricket, Don Bradman excelled in many sports including tennis, squash, golf and billiards. As a youngster he was picked to play in the Country Week tennis competition and played competitively in the Bowral Competition. Upon his arrival...
• ‘Granny’ Scholz ran a private hospital at 89 Adams St Cootamundra from 1894 and at this site, as Emily Bradman’s midwife, delivered Donald George Bradman on 27 August, 1908. Eliza Ellen Scholz was of Irish descent and a vital member...
•  Bradman's fastest first class century took only 70 minutes. This was in his innings of 369 for South Australia against Tasmania, during the 1935-36 season.
• His slowest century took 253 minutes when he and Bill Brown successfully saved the Trent Bridge Test in 1938.
• During his Test career, Bradman was never dismissed in the 90s.
• He was never stumped in Tests.
• Bradman played first class cricket in only two countries, Australia and England.
• Bradman's average in the first innings of Test matches was 97.85. His average in the second innings was 104.50.
• On four occasions, Bradman scored a century in both innings of a first class match.

Superb Quotes By Sir Donald Bradman

• "I was never coached; I was never told how to hold a bat."
• "If there is a threat to the game of cricket, that threat lies in the first class arena. One day cricket, especially day-night cricket, is here to stay."
• "Many cricketers who had more ability than I had, Why they didn't make more runs than I did, I don't know"
• "Every ball went exactly where I wanted it to go until the ball that got me out"
• "I'm very sorry I made a duck, I'd have been glad if I'd made those four extra runs to have an average of 100. I didn't know it at the time and I don't think the Englishmen knew it either. I think if they had known it they may have been generous enough to let me get four"
• "Of course that's rubbish. I was certainly emotional, but I wasn't that bad. But I was very sad walking out. I felt I'd let the people down"
• "A good captain must be a fighter; confident but not arrogant, firm but not obstinate; able to take criticism without letting it unduly disturb him, for he is sure to get it - and unfairly, too,"
• "When you play test cricket, you don’t give the Englishmen an inch. Play it tough, all the way. Grind them into the dust. "
• "Bowl faster, bowl faster. When you play test cricket, you don’t give the Englishmen an inch. Play it tough, all the way. Grind them into the dust. "
• "When you play test cricket, you don't give the Englishmen an inch. Play it tough, all the way. Grind them into the dust."
• "The game of cricket existed long before I was born. It will be played centuries after my demise. During my career I was privileged to give the public my interpretation of its character in the same way that a pianist might interpret the works of Beethoven. "
• "When considering the stature of an athlete or for that matter any person, I set great store in certain qualities which I believe to be essential in addition to skill. They are that the person conducts his or her life with dignity, with integrity, courage, and perhaps most of all, with modesty. These virtues are totally compatible with pride, ambition, and competitiveness. "