Young Bradman

50 First grade serialised life. Surely Bradman was asking for too much, to make the state side before playing a first grade match? On 1 January 1927, Bradman did play for New South Wales second team, against Victoria seconds, at the SCG. Of the home 12, nine had gone to the 11 October practice nets; in other words, the selectors ranked Bradman with the likes of Albert Scanes, Les Gwynne and Des Mullarkey, older men who already had a reputation in first grade. Bradman went in at 14 for two after Gwynne and Scanes were out cheaply, and was bowled at 109 for five, trying to cut a ball from Hans Ebeling and dragging on. Bradman had made what proved the top score of 43 out of 156 – in all a poor effort, the press felt, on a ‘beautiful’ pitch. While the newspapers praised Bradman for his confidence, and driving and pulling, ‘his running between the wickets left much to be desired. He seemed to be hampered by his footwear, and several times nearly slipped to the ground.’ If his shoes were not gripping the hard ground well enough, he did not remedy it by the second innings. Bradman ‘commenced vigorously, but when eight dragged one … to leg, and in so doing fell and knocked the leg bail off’. Bradman had run one, ‘and was coming back for the second run, when I noticed the square leg umpire with his hand up … and of course I had to go’, out hit wicket. This man who, in his 1935 ‘how to play’ book, stressed the need for proper footwear was learning the hard way. As another sign that Bradman was expecting too much by wanting to play at once for his state, he had much to learn from Sydney players. The former England captain Pelham Warner, like English visitors for generations, in his Book of Cricket stereotyped Australian pitches as ‘absolutely perfect’ for batting. Only the canniest or fastest bowlers could thrive. One who did not, the touring Englishman George Hirst, joked afterwards that ‘only once did I see a wet wicket, and that was hanging out to dry’; a strip of matting, presumably. The Cricketer in September 1928 told English readers how the SCG prepared a pitch: about a week before a first-class match, the groundsmen mowed and watered, and rolled for the water to go into the almost impervious Bulli soil. By rolling for about half an hour each day, the strip became ‘as hard and as impervious to water as a brick’. Bradman in his 1930 serialised life story agreed that the SCG wickets, ‘perfectly true, and easy-paced’ were a ‘batsman’s paradise’. The 1920s pioneer coach in London, Aubrey Faulkner, argued that batsmen and bowlers alike could only learn on true pitches; ‘there are 50 bad pitches to every good one’ in England, he complained. Bradman’s problem was that he had already learned once; on matting. In old age, he recalled the difference: Well, the ball doesn’t rise so high off the turf pitches as it does off the concrete, and it doesn’t turn so much as it does off the coir mat. And I was very short in stature at that time, I found it a bit difficult to come to terms with the ball keeping lower on the turf pitch. I had been accustomed to the bounce you see; this took a year or two to sort out, really ... and I did get bowled once or twice because the ball kept low and got under my bat; and