1934
Don Bradman’s 1934 bat
The blade
No piece of sporting equipment aroused more passion in Australia in the first half of the 20th century than Don Bradman’s cricket bats. In the gloved hands of the Don, these strands of willow made by William Sykes & Sons of Yorkshire astounded cricket fans, inspired the inflamed battle of the Bodyline series and later became a source of great national pride.
Contests between Britain and Australia, which commenced in 1861, were always hard fought. On 29 August 1882 at The Oval, the Australians, led by ‘The Demon Bowler’, Fred Spofforth, staged a breathtaking fightback so spectacular that English journalist Reginald Brooks, under the pseudonym ‘Peter Blobbs’, opined in the Sporting Times that English cricket had died and its ashes had been taken to Melbourne. Thereafter the contest between Britain and Australia became known as the tussle for the Ashes.
Almost half a century after that Test, in 1930 Don Bradman arrived in the United Kingdom and played cricket as it had never been played before. At Lord’s he scored 254. In the third Test, at Leeds, he scored a century before lunch and another between lunch and tea, and had reached 309 not out at stumps. This remains the only time a player has passed 300 in one day in a Test match, and Bradman’s eventual score of 334 was a world record. By the end of the series he had an average of 139.14, with an aggregate of 974 runs in seven innings. All of Bradman’s statistics in this series were, as they say, out of the park. Australia returned triumphant. The performance in 1930 – and there were other stars as well as Bradman – buoyed the national spirit during the Depression. Wise pundits said that England would never regain the Ashes while Bradman appeared for Australia.
The British selectors chose Douglas Jardine as England captain for the 1932 Ashes series. The aggressive Jardine and his team developed a version of fast-leg theory with balls pitched to come up fast and short; this became known as Bodyline. The attack, combined with an intimidatory field setting, limited the batsman’s options – the fast, short-pitched balls could easily hit him, and they did. Bodyline was developed for the single purpose of defeating Bradman.
In the 1932 series, a number of players were badly injured by Bodyline tactics. As the Australian captain said, ‘There are two teams out there. One is playing cricket and the other is not.’ Bodyline did limit Bradman’s scoring and England did regain the Ashes, but at great cost.
Australia was determined to regain the Ashes in 1934. Bradman seemed troubled in the early matches, but with the series tied as they went into the fourth Test at Leeds, he again put on a bravura show with a then-world-record partnership of 388 with Bill Ponsford. In the fifth Test, Bradman and Ponsford bettered that with a 451-run partnership – a record that stood for 57 years.
International cricket was interrupted by World War II, but in 1948 the Ashes series resumed and Bradman led a team to the UK that was dubbed, for its feats, the Invincibles. He retired at The Oval in triumph with an average of 99.94 that is unlikely ever to be equalled.
Bradman was a national hero of unprecedented fame. Through the tough years of the Depression, the notion of a kid from Bowral becoming the greatest cricketer of all time was a great source of comfort to Australians.