Young Bradman

110 We were the happiest couple ever.’ While warm enough, such a comment from Bradman about someone his own age is revealingly rare. The two men may have been wary, competing for a batting place, until both made their mark. We are only supposed to speak well of the dead, and in any case speculating is pointless. What if Jackson had lived and been a second Trumper, and provided an alternative for those unimpressed by Bradman to rally around, a Trotsky to his Stalin. With only hours to think, daily newspapers can print silly things at the best of times. Just as the players and critics had been slow to rate Bradman above Jackson, once Bradman made records – the 334 at Leeds; and 974 in the series, still a record - reporters went to the other extreme. After the 334, PJ Moss in the Daily Mirror hailed Bradman as ‘the greatest run-getting machine playing cricket’ and asked if he would ever get out in a Test match, except by accident; even though in the previous two Tests Bradman had twice made single figures. In mid-May during his 78 at Sheffield, Bradman hit a short-pitched ball from Wilfred Rhodes ‘so hard that the umpire examined his bat to make sure that it contained no mechanical device’, The Times reported. These two ideas, that so many witnesses fell back on, differed slightly: ‘run-getting machine’ suggested his body had the characteristics of a machine; while ‘mechanical’ granted Bradman or machine? In this 1909 cartoon by Frank Reynolds during the Australian tour of England, Punch enjoys its favourite sport - of mocking the lower classes. One urchin says to another: “Tell yer wot. You be England, and I’ll be Victor Trumpet!