Sir Donald George Bradman, often
referred to as "The Don",
was an Australian cricketer,
widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman
of all time. Bradman's career Test
batting
average of 99.94 is often cited as statistically the greatest
achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.
The story that the
young Bradman practised alone with a cricket stump and a golf ball is part of Australian folklore. Bradman's meteoric rise
from bush
cricket to the Australian Test team took
just over two years. Before his 22nd birthday, he had set many records for high
scoring, some of which still stand, and became Australia's sporting idol at the
height of the Great Depression.
During a 20-year
playing career, Bradman consistently scored at a level that made him, in the
words of former Australia captain Bill Woodfull,
"worth three batsmen to Australia".[4]
A controversial set of tactics, known as Bodyline,
was specifically devised by the England team to curb his scoring. As a
captain and administrator, Bradman was committed to attacking, entertaining
cricket; he drew spectators in record numbers. He hated the constant adulation,
however, and it affected how he dealt with others. The focus of attention on
his individual performances strained relationships with some team-mates,
administrators and journalists, who thought him aloof and wary. Following an
enforced hiatus due to the Second World War, he made a dramatic comeback,
captaining an Australian team known as "The Invincibles" on a
record-breaking unbeaten tour of England.

Throughout
the 1930s and 40s Bradman was the world's master cricketer, so far ahead of
everyone else that comparisons became pointless. In 1930, he scored 974 runs in
the series, 309 of them in one amazing day at Headingley, and in seven Test
series against England he remained a figure of utter dominance; Australia lost
the Ashes only once, in 1932-33, when England were so spooked by Bradman that
they devised a system of bowling, Bodyline, that history has damned as brutal
and unfair, simply to thwart him. He still averaged 56 in the series.

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