Young Bradman

99 England that Bradman was working ‘on the self-imposed job’ of understanding English conditions. That implied Bradman would become better still. Off the field, Bradman was living within himself, as Noble and anyone accompanying the tourists could see. Despite the evidence of his own eyes, and the numbers, even this most experienced critic was still thinking of Bradman in terms of someone from the past. Noble could not make the last judgement, admittedly the hardest one to make: that Bradman was beyond what Noble, or anyone, had ever seen. Or had Noble, purposely or not, left unsaid half of his thinking; that a batsman should give up after a century, so that others in the team could have a chance? Another journalist, Cliff Cary, by 1948 could recall Bradman’s three double centuries at Worcester in the 1930s: ‘Several [Australian players] hinted that Bradman, in not following accepted principles, was thinking of himself and not the side.’ And after Australia had regained the Ashes, a poem linked Bradman with admired batsmen of the past: WG Grace, Ranji (‘still the prince’), Trumper and Macartney.