Sir Donald Bradman, who died on Sunday, should be regarded as a "one in 10 billion" freak of nature and his cricketing prowess made him the most pre-eminent athlete in any field in history, says one academic.
The world would have to wait 100,000 years, and 1 million more test playerswould have to pass through it, before someone approaching Sir Donald's prowess might emerge, says biochemist Charles Davies.
Davies' reckoning was based on the fact that Sir Donald's test average of 99.94 was more than 50 per cent higher than that of the next best players.
A Bradman biographer, Roland Perry, wrote: "Using the so-called Bell statistical curve on a graph, [Davies] shows that Bradman's average is so far from the norm that we would have to wait for another million test players before someone approaching it would emerge.
"Making the conservative assumption that one in every 10,000 people who at some time play the game actually go on to test level, the world would be searching for that one player in 10 billion."
