Young Bradman

63 New South Wales was fielding close at silly point, where he had just caught Jackson off Blackie, for six: … Blackie pitched his first delivery well up. Bradman jumped down the wicket and drove the ball like lightning to the off boundary. Although Blackie tried to tempt him into a false stroke, the Bowral lad went along in quite a natural manner, and put together 31 in excellent style. Another slow bowler, Albert Hartkopf, had Bradman leg before. BJ Davie for The Referee reckoned the ball hit Bradman too high, on the hip, to be out. That said, the Victoria wicket-keeper Jack Ellis could have stumped Bradman off Blackie, and Ironmonger should have run Bradman out, when Oldfield tapped the ball to Hartkopf at cover point, Bradman ran halfway down the pitch, and Oldfield sent him back. Bradman was yards short when Ironmonger accidentally knocked the bails off with his knee, and when he did field the ball did not knock a stump out of the ground. The crowd groaned; Ironmonger was so unsupple, he found it hard to bend. Set 375 to win, or to bat more than a day to draw, New South Wales collapsed and lost by 222 runs. Bradman ‘hit over a full pitched ball from Blackie and was bowled’, for five. It left them bottom of the four-state Sheffield Shield. Although Bradman in his 1930 life serial called himself ‘a little disappointed with my non-success’ in Melbourne, I was pleased to see two magnificent scores by both the men I was anxious to see in action, notwithstanding the fact that I helped chase the runs. This gave me an opportunity of watching their methods, and so increased my cricket education. To my mind, watching the class player is one of the happiest and most effective means of learning the art of cricket. Bradman did not feel disheartened, or annoyed, by having to field in more midsummer heat while Ponsford made 202 in the first innings, and Woodfull 191 not out in the second. He was not polishing his feelings years later. ‘The whole trip has been wonderful and the experience which one gains on such a trip is a great benefit for all future occasions,’ Bradman told the Southern Mail in Bowral, while thanking an anonymous telegram of congratulations from the town, after his century in Adelaide. For a 21 st century English or Australian cricketer not to watch two Test batsmen until he played against them, his upbringing would be unnaturally, even criminally, deprived. Bradman knew no different. In some ways, Bradman might have found inter-state cricket less demanding than Saturday afternoon first grade. The heat was the same, and you might have to field for hours, in either. Every ‘experience’ was fresh; all the travel and staying in hotels was interesting, the fuss by everyone gratifying. Alf Stephens had met Bradman in the members’ stand at the MCG, while on holiday in the city. Rather than playing for half a day after five days of work, Bradman was free all week to learn cricket. He recalled in old age that he enjoyed watching Kippax – ‘he was a very stylish and very graceful player’, and Archie Jackson (‘of course’). He added, tellingly: ‘I never tried to emulate those players, because I couldn’t do that.’ In his next match, against Queensland, his first for New South