Young Bradman

61 New South Wales is not the same as ability but seldom as obvious. One sign of it came when Bradman stepped back and pulled the ball to deep fine leg for his century: ‘he watched the ball hit the fence without troubling to run’. Also important for Bradman, at least judging by how much he wrote about it later, was an invitation by Grimmett to his home one evening. Bradman recalled Grimmett ‘not only told me stories of cricket including stories of England that made me ache to go there some day but also showed me some amazing tricks with a soft ball’. Why did Grimmett do that? The two had little in common. They played for rival states and for one to succeed, the other had to fail. Grimmett was about to turn 36; perhaps Grimmett wanted to be fatherly towards Bradman as Mailey did towards Jackson. Bradman gave two clues. Grimmett, having toured England for the first time in 1926 – after struggling for years to make his name – may have sensed Bradman’s ambition. Did Grimmett (‘a most modest, unassuming fellow’, Bradman called him in 1930) see something of himself in Bradman? As for the tricks with a ball, Grimmett may have been trying to impress the newcomer, and get him out more easily later. It will not do to be that cynical. Grimmett, himself far from home, having grown up in New Zealand, was giving hospitality to someone away from home for the first time. Even if it was not in his interests to help Bradman, Grimmett out of good nature was sharing what he knew. Such was the culture of cricketers then. On Thursday evening 9 June 1938, Bill O’Reilly did much the same, in his Nottingham hotel room, for the 20-year-old Denis Compton, who was making his debut against Australia the next day. Perhaps the men could not help themselves; O’Reilly as a school-teacher, and Grimmett a coach (in that 1927/28 season, captaining an Adelaide colts team in the Spin bowler Clarrie Grimmett.