Young Bradman

80 Australia Why was Bradman in the 12 at all, ahead of Jackson? The selectors may have appreciated that Bradman was at least thinking how to match these new bowlers. In the Fourth Test, Bradman still found it hard to beat White’s well-set field. Again intriguingly in hindsight, Bradman also faced ‘leg theory’ from Larwood, who had three close fielders on the leg side. In the first innings Larwood caught a less confident-looking than usual Bradman in the slips off Tate for 40; second best to Jackson’s debut 164. Clem Hill hailed Jackson’s ‘impregnable’ defence and straight bat: ‘He is not like some of our other batsmen who step away from the wicket.’ Did Hill have Bradman in mind? However, it did not alter what Jackson’s admirers left unsaid, understandably after his early death; what the Sydney Morning Herald days earlier had called his ‘fatal habit of flicking at the off ball, which does not threaten the off stump’. Other fine batsmen have had the same fault, such as David Hookes and David Gower. Did they, and Jackson, put in as much ‘head work’ as Bradman? A defence for Jackson, unlike Hookes or Gower, could be that as an opener he saw bowlers at their freshest. Thus – it’s hardly the most original tactic – when MCC won the toss against New South Wales in November 1928 and declared on 734 for seven after all but an hour of two days, their opening bowlers Tate and Hammond soon took the wickets of Jackson, Morgan and Andrews. Bradman joined Kippax: ‘… the time was ten minutes to six, and there was a fading light … I could not have asked for anything better, and had my captain [Kippax] asked me to wait until next day and sent someone else in that night, I would have been very disappointed, for it seemed just the incentive I required to do well.’ Freeman had come on for Hammond. Did Bradman have it easier than Jackson? ‘I have always John Player cigarette card of Archie Jackson in 1930. Clem Hill in 1905.