The tales of the rivalry between Don Bradman and Clarrie Grimmett are legendary. In his old age, Grimmett maintained that The Don was not really good against accurate leg spin. Bradman maintained that he knew all about Grimmett’s variations. Arunabha Sengupta looks at the numbers to find out how they actually fared against each other.
When interviewed by Ashley Mallett in 1976, Clarrie Grimmett claimed, “Don Bradman was no good against good length leg-spin.”
The claim that Bradman was ‘no good’ against any type of bowling perhaps ranks with the grandest of hyperboles. We can perhaps excuse Grimmett by noting that at the time of the interview he was 84. Perhaps by then his opinions, perceptions and wishful thinking had merged into one composite misguiding mass.
Besides, there was no love lost between Grimmett and Bradman.
There are plenty of stories Grimmett liked to recount — of confusing Bradman with his googlies. “He tried to go on punching instead of getting used to the new form of attack, and so lost his wicket. It seemed that the Sydney Hill crowd realised what was going on, because when I switched to googlies one of them called out, ‘Why don’t you bowl him some more leg-breaks, Clarrie? He likes them.’”
Grimmett’s cricketing stories understandably always seemed to end in victory for the bowlers. He resented the glamour that was somehow associated with batting. He had his reasons too. His 216 wickets (a world record at that time) in 37 Tests read incredible. And although the average of 24.21 does not stand out anywhere near as unique as the 99.94 that Bradman managed with his bat, there is at least one aspect of his career which some have claimed to be more incredible than even The Don’s achievements.
In 248 First-Class matches, Grimmett claimed five or more wickets in an innings on 127 occasions (in other words, he had a five-wicket haul in 51.2 per cent of the matches he played). That rate is a shade better than Bradman’s 117 hundreds from 234 matches (a round 50 per cent). However, even this statistic, quoted superficially by many, is misleading. Bradman batted in 338 innings while Grimmett bowled in 435.
That there was a lot of tension between the two is well-known. The rivalry was a noted one when Bradman batted against Grimmett during the first years of his career whenever New South Wales played South Australia. The head to head contests were, however, reduced to a few miscellaneous matches after Bradman migrated to South Australia himself.
As captain of South Australia, Bradman once observed that Grimmett was bowling too many flippers. By then, the leg-spinner was in his mid-40s. The Don voiced, “I don’t think you can bowl a leg-break any longer.” In a testimonial match at Adelaide that followed, Grimmett played for
Vic Richardson’s XI and bowled Bradman with a ball that pitched on the middle stump and hit off.
Grimmett indeed had the habit of shooting his mouth off, claiming that he knew how to get Bradman out. It did not amuse the great man. There was also a supposed altercation in the dressing room during the course of which Grimmett accused Bradman of playing for himself rather than the side. Many believe that this was the reason why Bradman opted for Frank Ward, first for the home series against Gubby Allen’s men in 1936-37 and then for the tour of England in 1938. This move effectively signalled the end of Grimmett’s Test career.
While Bradman did acknowledge Grimmett’s greatness, some of his words subtly downplayed his merits. In the introduction to the biography of Hedley Verity penned by Alan Hill, Bradman writes, “I think I knew all about Clarrie, but with Hedley I was never sure.”
All this leads one to ask: What was Bradman’s record against Grimmett? Did the leg-spinner hold the edge over him, or was Bradman as brilliant against the Gnome as he was in the rest of his career? Let us check.
It did not take Bradman long to come up against the best leg-spinner of the day. He played Grimmett first as a 19-year-old debutant, as he took field for New South Wales against South Australia at Adelaide in December 1927.
Alan Kippax had retired ill while batting, and so although Bradman walked out at 250 for four, he was batting at No. 7. Grimmett was the first bowler he faced and Bradman immediately hit him for two boundaries in the first over. And even though Grimmett later claimed that Bradman had never used his feet against him, this particular innings was characterised by the quickness of those very famous feet.
Bradman became the 20th batsman to score a hundred on debut in First-Class cricket and was caught off JD Scott for 118. In the second innings the wicket was more helpful to Grimmett’s bowling and the leggie bowled the young man off his pads for 33.
In the course of their careers, Bradman met Grimmett in 15 matches and batted in 27 innings. Grimmett got him 10 times.
In these 27 knocks, Bradman amassed 1709 runs at 63.30, with six hundreds of which three were double centuries. Five other innings were fifties.
There were 8 single digit knocks in these 27, a very high proportion for Bradman. However, strangely, in none of these eight innings was he dismissed by Grimmett.
In all the innings in which he was dismissed by Grimmett, his scores read: 33, 73, 14, 35, 225, 84, 76, 212, 13, 17.
Bradman’s average of 63.30 against Grimmett is a very sharp dip from his 95.14 overall (98.35 without Grimmett). And his rate of hundreds also comes down to more reasonable numbers. He seems almost human, even though one of the very best among lesser mortals.
However, even with these numbers, it is rather difficult to conclude that Grimmett had the advantage over Bradman.
If those were the figures of a batsman who was ‘no good against good length leg spin,’ then leg spin turns out to be a rather dispensable art.
The Don may not have made as many runs and centuries against Grimmett as against the rest of them. But, even then, his figures were more than impressive.
It is perhaps fair to say that the duels between the two were well balanced battles, action that any cricket lover would give anything to witness.