Young Bradman

83 Australia considered experts in running allowed me to get into bad habits from the start. Writing again, at more length, in The Art of Cricket , Bradman made the point that on a rough pitch you simply cannot slide the bat along the ground as you finish your run; and on a country tour, probably in 1928, the New South Wales batsman Tommy Andrews taught him (‘I ran him out and he ran me out but the matches were unimportant so that didn’t matter’). If that was an example of what Bradman in 1930 called the ‘good fellowship between Australian cricketers on and off the field’, it was also in the interest of the other fellow to teach Bradman. Even before the Fourth Test, the Sydney Morning Herald had named Woodfull, Kippax, Oldfield, Bradman and Grimmett as the ‘nucleus’ of the Australian team. In the Fifth and final, ‘clockless’ Test in March 1929, on a dry, ‘lifeless’ pitch, England won the toss and batted first for 519. Jackson was first out for 30, run out after he stumbled; did he like Bradman have shortcomings in equipment? Bradman batting at five and Fairfax at six, on debut, each went to the wicket at 203, on the fourth day. Still together at tea, Bradman had made 62 to Fairfax’s 23. Bradman was still not perfect; at 46 he gave a hard chance to Geary, only for a gust of wind to blow the brim of his sun hat over his eyes so that he had to grope blind. In the second innings, when only five, Bradman went out to White and missed; Duckworth only had to take the bails, but dropped the ball. In a match so painstaking that the press reasonably speculated it could take ten days – England only began their second innings at the end of the fifth day – it was striking how Macartney, famed as a fast-scoring bat himself, praised Bradman for his aggression. Bradman finished the fourth day on 109 not out, after three hours and 20 minutes, two hours faster than Woodfull’s ‘plodding’ 102. Bradman was 37 not out and batting with his captain Jack Ryder when Australia won by five wickets, on the eighth day. Others, such as Neville Cardus, sitting in England, deplored the match without time limit for making batsman slow, and selfish. Critics would soon complain that Bradman batted only for records, for himself and not the team. Could you score runs faster than others, like Bradman, and still be selfish? Like so much in sport, let alone life, it was a matter of opinion, and depended on who you were: batsman or bowler, administrator or spectator paying for it all. In June 1953 as a reporter in England, Bradman recalled: When I first entered big cricket I was strongly in favour of completely covering pitches and playing all Test matches to a finish. In those days I was interested purely in the playing side. I thought it absurd for my team to travel thousands of miles with the possibility of not even being able to arrive at a decision. England had the decision, winning the series four matches to one. Another 12 months, and Australia’s tourists would set off for the next series in England. Bradman, and Jackson, only had to stay in form to make it to England. In the Sheffield Shield in the 1929/30 season Bradman made a record 894