Cricket: Bradman magic never matched

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

SIR DONALD BRADMAN 1908-2001

Eric Tindill had a little smile yesterday at the memory of being the only New Zealand cricketer to catch out The Don.

Now aged 90, he recalls with clarity the only cricket match Sir Donald Bradman played against a New Zealand side.

He laughs at how he was told he owed the New Zealand Cricket Council £1000 for dismissing the greatest batsman alive.

It was 1937, and the New Zealanders were on their way home from a long tour of England. They stopped at the Adelaide Oval to play Bradman's South Australian XI.

Bradman was a sedate 11 not out at the end of the first day. But the next morning, the legend snicked the first ball he faced - a Jack Cowie fast ball that swung away from the bat - and wicketkeeper Tindill gathered it sweetly in his gloves.

"A big, big crowd was waiting outside to see their hero bat. When they heard he was out, they all turned around and went home.

"Unfortunately, it cost the NZCC money, because they got a share of the gate takings. They joked that they would charge me £1000 to make up for it.

"Whenever I hear the name Bradman, I remember that moment. It was an honour to catch out such an exceptional man."

Tributes from around the globe poured in yesterday for the man who was revered as an Australian god for most of his 92 years.

The man who as a boy spent hour upon hour hitting a golf ball with a cricket stump against a rusty water tank.

"The Great Man" who set records with a bat that still stand unchallenged 70 years on.

"The Don" lifted the spirit of a nation during the despair of the Depression, but then erected a wall of privacy in his later years.

In the cricketer's bible, Wisden, he is described as a "flawless engine" by writer R. C. Robertson-Glasgow.

"Poetry and murder lived in him together. He would slice the bowling to ribbons, then dance without pity on the corpse."

His record at the crease is unequalled. His test average - one no other batsman has come near - is 99.94.

The most famous Bradman story is how he was out for a duck in his final test at the Oval in 1948 - if he had scored just four runs he would have retired with a magical 100-run average.

Tears welled in his eyes as he approached the crease - the fans and the English team singing "For he's a jolly good fellow."

In his last interview, five years ago, Sir Donald was asked why he thought his records remained unchallenged.

"I saw much better batsmen than I was. Lots of them ... they just kept getting out," he said.

Walter Hadlee's best memory of the man is just that.

"He was quite extraordinary - he just wanted to keep on batting. He just loved being out in the middle," said Hadlee, one of New Zealand's great cricketers of that age.

"He meant a lot to me. When he went to England in 1930, I was 13 and I rushed to the mailbox every morning for the paper to see how many he had made in the latest match.

"He was very quick on his feet - on the attack most of the time. Even when he was playing defensively, he thought to score a single, he tried to score off every ball.

"I believe he had extremely good eyesight. He saw the ball more quickly than others."

Hadlee can remember every score Bradman posted in that tour, when cricket virtually became a one-man show.

In five tests he scored a record 974 runs - with innings like 131 at Nottingham, 254 at Lords, 334 at Leeds and 232 at the Oval.

He was 21 years old.

Two years later, Bradman was the target of the English side's wrath and the infamous Bodyline series strained relations between the two nations.

When he retired in 1948, after 12 years as captain, he had amassed 6996 test runs.

The successful stockbroker, knighted the next year, did not turn his back on cricket - he later became chairman of the Australian Cricket Board and head of selectors for the national team.

But he shied away from media attention, even though the public's adulation never dimmed.

As important as cricket was to him, the love of his life was Jessie Menzies.

He said he fell in love with her the first time he saw her - he was 12 years old and she had come to live at his family home in Bowral, south of Sydney. It took him 10 years to pluck up the courage to ask her out.

They were married for 65 years before Jessie died of cancer, aged 88, in 1997.

Sir Donald is survived by his daughter Shirley and son John - a barrister who changed his surname to Bradson when the weight of his father's fame became too heavy.

Said Sir Donald at the time: "Only those who have to live with the incessant strain of publicity can have any idea of its impact."

Before his father died, John changed his name back again.