The 21 -year-old Bradman and his Leeds wagonwheel
by Arunabha Sengupta
11 July 1930, Headingley.
At Lord’s when the 21-year-old had passed 250, one weary Londoner was supposed to have remarked, “Blimey, what are you worrying about, that’s only quarter of a thousand.”
However, Don Bradman had had his eyes on the 287 by Tip Foster. When Chapman caught him off the only ball he had hit in the air, bringing close to that ethereally brilliant 254, he had been disappointed. Andy Sandham had already scored what has gone down as the first 300 in Test cricket, but that match was yet to get Test status. Hence Foster’s record still stood.
Bradman did not touch the bat for a week before the Leeds Test. He had a private look around London, enjoyed the Wimbledon finals, motored up to Yorkshire through the pre-motorway England roads and checked into the Queen’s Hotel on Thursday evening.
On Friday, Archie Jackson was out for 1 off the 11th ball of the Test. Bradman walked out at 11.38 am with Larwood and Tate in operation. First change was George Geary, and then Dick Tyldesley with his leg spin. And finally Hammond and Leyland. A top quality attack.
However, all the attacking was done by The Don. Straight drives, cover drives, off drives, hooks, cuts and his famous pulls … As The Times put it, “To mention the strokes from which he scored most of his runs is to go through the whole range of strokes known to a modern batsman. Once or twice he demonstrated an idea which is not generally understood, but at no time did he take anything approaching a risk, and he cannot have hit the ball in the air more than three times during the day.”
The statistics are eerie.
50 in 49 minutes 67 balls.
After 99 minutes, he hit Larwood to the leg side boundary to reach his 100 off 145 deliveries.
There was still 13 minutes to go for lunch, precisely the same time Macartney had to spare when he got the landmark at the same venue four years earlier. Macartney was watching the innings from the press-box, and the third member of the elite club, Victor Trumper, perhaps from the stands around the Elysian Fields. Majid Khan would join them in 1976-77.
At 138 Bradman completed 1000 runs in Test cricket, in just his 13th innings.
Woodfull fell for 50 after the break, Bradman by then was on 142.
The 200 was up at 4 pm, in 214 minutes, 262 balls. The previous 50 had been slow, off 73 deliveries. Bradman made up for it by rushing to his fourth fifty in 44 balls
There was a chancy stroke off Tyldesley at 202 which carried over mid-on’s head, but not really an opportunity. Then the massacre continued.
Tyldesley, rubicund and rotund, chased too often. The ball seemed to follow him and shoot past towards the boundary. And as he puffed after it again and again someone asked, “He’s damned good, isn’t he?” A miffed Tyldesley answered, “He’s no good to me.”
At 273, a little before six o’clock, there was a rather difficult chance at the wicket off Geary. Duckworth dropped it, The Don smiled broadly and the wicketkeeper looked daggers.
An on drive off Tate took him past Foster’s 287 in 314 minutes, 105 minutes quicker than old ‘Tip’.
Kippax fell for 77 with the score on 423.
And then Bradman reached 300, in five hours and 36 minutes, off 413 balls. Cheered along by everyone who witnessed the magnificence that day. That included a 14-year-old schoolboy called Len Hutton, sitting on the hard benches of Headingley.
It is said that when Bradman was acknowledging cheers for his 300, one grizzled Yorkshireman was asked what he thought of the batsman. “Why, ah think wiv a bit o’practice t’ lad ‘ll make a cricketer.”
Jack Hobbs fielded mostly at cover, and went further and further back towards the fence that day. He recalled how monotonous it soon became to walk up to him and say, “Well played, Don” after each 50.
It was Duckworth who looked rather accusingly at Tate, reminding him of the remark at the end of the 1928-29 series. “I thought you could get him out in England of that cross batted shot, Maurice?” It was not really a laughing matter anymore.
Tate claimed he missed hitting The Don’s ‘off peg by a coat of varnish’ off the first ball he bowled to him. There is no evidence to support this.
And Larwood, in a 1954 newspaper article, claimed that he had Bradman caught before he had scored and all the English players knew it. There is no mention of an appeal recorded by the considerably large press contingent of the day, and no recollection of any other English or Australian cricketer. The two umpires were dead by the time Larwood came forward with this bit of what seems to be manufactured memory.
But Bradman was not done. The final ball of the day was beautifully off-driven for four, to take him past 2000 that season, and carry his score forward to 309.
“You may talk of Alexander, Hercules, Trumper or Macartney, but this young Australian is a super-batsman and the equal of anyone,” wrote Plum Warner.
Trevor Wignall put it in a nutshell: “At the rate he is progressing, he will soon have to be handicapped, as are billiards players, before he starts to score. It is either compelling him to owe 100 or blindfolding him that will stop his gallop.”
When he walked into the dressing room that day, Bradman looked fresh out of a bandbox. Vic Richardson said that his words were, “A good bit of practice for tomorrow.”
He fell at 334 the next morning, Tate finally getting him to edge to Duckworth. Perhaps he said, “I said I could get him out.” Perhaps they all just breathed again.
46 fours, 6 threes, 26 twos, 80 singles. 448 balls and 383 minutes.
The innings, according to the Yorkshire CCC scorebook, reads
24211442141432144114441241411121412411112144121441424211114111121324241141411224241122441111141111111414311141421114312211211441211121134141141114443111411244