The doyen of writers, Sir Neville Cardus, was in the press box when Don Bradman scored his 334 at Leeds in 1930. He wrote later in his book Play Resumed with Cardus: “At Leeds Bradman announced his rights to mastership in a few swift moments. He made 72 runs in his first hour at the wicket, giving to us every bit of cricket excepting the leg-glance. Every fine point of batsmanship was to be admired; strokes powerful and swift and accurate and handsome; variety of craft controlled with singleness of mind and purpose. Bradman was as determined to take no risks, as was to hit boundaries from every ball the least loose. And his technique is so extensive and practised that he can get runs at the rate of 50 an hour, without once needing to venture romantically into the realms of the speculative or the empirical.”
Countering the criticisms of Bradman, Neville Cardus put forward his argument with customary finesse: “People say ‘Oh, but he hasn’t the charm of McCabe, or the mercury of MacCartney, or the dignity of Hammond; the objection is a little unintelligent, as though a lion was criticized for lacking the delicacy of the gazelle, the worrying tenacity of the terrier and the disdainful elegance of a swan or a camel.”
Cardus summed up his views of Bradman with his famous observation, “Bradman’s achievements stagger the imagination. No writer of boys’ fiction would dare to invent a hero who performed with Bradman’s continual consistency. His batsmanship delights one’s knowledge of the game, his every stroke is a dazzling and precious stone in the game’s crown”.
(Source: Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’, a cricketing biography of Don Bradman and a panorama of batting from the 1860s to present times).
Published in India by Sporting Links
ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0
Fully illustrated
Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4
inches
Weight 480 grams
188 pages
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