Young Bradman

49 First grade were watching. Two of the Possibles, and six Probables, made their Shield debuts two weeks later in Brisbane; captained by the Probables captain, Alan Kippax. Allowing for those Australian tourists still abroad, the selectors were treating Bradman as one of the best dozen batsmen in the state, another remarkable leap. As a sign of how seriously the Sydney press and its readers took cricket, three newspapers sent reporters to the SCG. The Referee columnist ‘Not Out’ disapproved of how the day was ‘more like a glorified practice … the teams were changed about, new bowlers were popping out from the pavilion to fire away at the batsmen, while others popped back to seclusion’. Fifteen played for the Possibles, 27 in all. The Possibles, batting 12, declared on 237 for ten at 2.30 pm, as arranged. The Probables made 302 for nine, and won by 65 runs. Des Mullarkey from St George made the Possibles’ top score of 64 and retired at lunch; Bradman, batting at seven and already in, went on to 37 not out; and their captain HC ‘Hobby’ Steele opened with 36. For the Probables, Kippax made 58 and Jackson retired on 53. Bradman was seventh of eight bowlers tried. All three reporters had kind words for Bradman. The Sydney Morning Herald , while calling him ‘a trifle on the slow side’, noted he ‘was one of the few batsmen to leave his crease to the slow deliveries of Campbell, whom he played well at a period when that bowler was meeting with considerable success’. Norval Campbell, one month younger than Bradman, took five for 79 and would make his New South Wales debut later that month. The Sun had most to say about Bradman, and spotted characteristics that others would in the next few years. Keep in mind that the reporter had no way of knowing what ‘the youthful Bowral lad’ (presumably he meant Bradman looked as young as he was) would become: Here is a born cricketer - a mere youngster, but bubbling over with confidence - not cheeky confidence, but the quiet, determined confidence that has come as a result of making centuries. Bradman is noted for three- figure scores, and so, after all, it is not perhaps surprising that he was not perturbed even though he was making his first public appearance ... From the start he shaped like a batsman. He stayed at the wickets 97 minutes and didn’t look like getting out - a fine debut. He may win his NSW cap this year. One phrase – ‘he didn’t look like getting out’ – would, almost to the word, keep cropping up. Bradman did get out, sometimes thanks to himself. On Saturday, 27 November 1926 he played for St George in first grade for the first time, at Petersham. After the first four batsmen, including Dick Jones, Mullarkey and Alan Fairfax, were out for 104, Bradman made 110 and Clarrie Targett 150 not out. They added 197, ‘before Bradman ran himself out in attempting an impossible run’. Bradman hit 15 off the first over by the returning tourist Tommy Andrews. Assuming that Andrews was the first Test bowler that Bradman had faced, you have to suspect that Bradman was making a point. Bradman was not in Brisbane, where New South Wales were playing Queensland, ‘as I hoped’, he remarked revealingly in his 1930