Young Bradman

136 reach the peak, such as acting and other arts. In May 1930 the Hollywood actor Douglas Fairbanks - offering some newspaper advice on how to ‘beat your handicap’ at golf - spoke of the age as ‘one of ‘extreme competition’. That implied that for you to succeed, someone else did not. Fairbanks spoke of ‘a levelling up of ability and strength with the result that the prize often goes to the one who puts just that little extra into his work … you have to be all out from the pistol to the tape’. Sporting metaphors came easily. In his Cricket Controversy , Cliff Cary claimed, without offering any evidence: ‘If Bradman relived his cricket life he would probably enter the arena with a different spirit than he often displayed in the unrelenting forward march which commenced in his school days and continued on until the evening of his career in the 1946/47 Tests.’ Had Bradman been, as Cary put it, ‘over purposeful’, to make sure that he made the grade, and became set in his ways? Why should Bradman have wanted to be merely on a par with the other leading batsmen of his time, even if it might bring a respite in the publicity; could his pride have taken any decline, even only relative? Cary assumed that Bradman could have toned himself down, as if anyone can; or as if a merely very good player knows how to add something to himself, to become even better. It is given to few men to be totally selfless or selfish, monk or millionaire. Most men, in cricket as in life, are in between. Sometimes a man puts himself first – if he does not, who will? – and sometimes others; he gives so that he can take. Cary, plainly briefed by other players, complained that Australian batsmen in early county matches in 1930 ‘deliberately threw away their wickets to give others in the team a chance for match practice, while Bradman was chasing his double centuries’. This assumed two things; that Bradman was batting with ‘eye on the scoreboard’, while others might have gone for 200, only they thought of the good of the team. Neither was true. CLR James wrote in Beyond a Boundary : George Headley has explained to me that people speak of Sir Donald’s heavy scoring as if each and every great batsman was able to do the same, but refrained for aesthetic or chivalrous reasons which Sir Donald ignored. Speaking with authority, Headley is lost in admiration and even in wonder at the nervous stamina and concentration which Sir Donald displayed in making these mammoth scores so consistently over so long a period. In his 1931 book Playing for England; My Test Cricket Story , Hobbs half- agreed with Headley. On Bradman’s record-breaking 1930, Hobbs said that ‘once the 100th run is passed the race’ – note the metaphor about competition – ‘is mainly a matter of temperament – and of course stamina. Sometimes I hesitate to say this – lack of imagination has to do with it.’ For someone as kindly as Hobbs, this amounted to a rebuke, to someone. Hobbs was suggesting that Bradman lacked the imagination to see a bigger picture; that there was more to the game than making as many runs as you possibly could; you played cricket with, besides against, players. Or, Hobbs meant that few men had Bradman’s imagination (an intriguing idea, that Fingleton also took up) to think beyond 100, to 200, 300 and more. In his 1930s memoir Bradman claimed that he did give his wicket away, How did he do it?