Young Bradman

34 School and district years loved to torment their weaker victims, and who could because adults let them or were ignorant. In his 1989 memoir The Puzzles of Childhood , Clark saw the irony that his education was the most expensive and prestigious around; the school had a cricket coach - if only for the first eleven; Clark played for the thirds. Clark liked to bat, but was judged and laughed at, and dared not stand out: The captain, Peter Dawson, one of the school prefects, was kind to me. He asked me why I was so ‘nervy’, saying he wished he had half my talent. I did not dare to look pleased, because I knew by then that anyone puffed up with pride would have that knocked out of them smart quick on the soapy table, or running the gauntlet through the wet-towel men in the Long Dorm. What would those older boys have done with a wet towel to Bradman? For someone to bring out any talent in themselves, they not only need permission from others; they need the tools. In his 1984 book Fifty Years in Cricket , Sir Leonard Hutton like other Englishmen contrasted Australian and English pitches: Bradman had the considerable advantage of learning his cricket on matting surfaces with a concrete base, and later to play on Bulli surfaces. At a comparable age English batsmen have to contend with slow pitches, often of doubtful quality … good pitches breed confidence. That was not always so in the Southern Highlands. In April 1924, when Bradman made 102 not out of 162 for three at Bundanoon, the pitch was ‘playing tricks, an occasional ‘shooter’ and several rising balls being in evidence’. And in February 1926, when Bradman opened with 104 out of 285 for nine for Bowral A, Alf Stephens hit Sid Carey, batting for Bowral B, in the ribs ‘with a bumping ball’. Carey (maybe the ‘saddle and harness maker’ in Bong Bong Street) hit the next onto the footpath by the shed, then ‘received another one in the ribs’. Double figure team batting totals and single figure bowlers’ averages were common. If the pitch could play up, the outfield could always be worse. Over dinner at Bowral in 1891, WG Grace said that although the wicket played well, the fielding ground was not fit for a country eleven to play on. In old age Bradman recalled how it was much easier for a bowler, such as Bill O’Reilly from Wingello, to turn a ball off the coir mats on concrete than on turf: Bill was almost unplayable on the coir mat, not so difficult perhaps when he first went on to turf, because of the inability to turn the ball as much and because the bounce is less; but I can promise you he was really difficult on concrete pitches. In an Australian summer, parched except for thundery downpours, keeping turf took more work than most clubs could give. The Sydney Morning Herald in 1911 commented that playing in Sydney helped ‘our country cousins’, ‘for no matter how good a player may be, his actions – especially footwork – are hampered by having to play on asphalt or concrete wickets’. The divide however was not between city and country,