What Bradman's death means to the Indian cricket fan

"More than forty years after his retirement, Bradman would still receive up to a couple of dozen letters a day from his faithful fans, many from India where he never even played."

This item, appearing in a AFP report as part of an obituary notice on Sir Donald Bradman, just about sums up the reverence he was held in India.

Bradman was 92 at the time of his death. He was never out in the 90s during his Test career, a tribute to his unique skill and temparament. Whenever he got to 90, a hundred was taken for granted. Bradman however could not duplicate this feat in life.

During his playing days, Bradman's fan mail was unprecedented. Letters with just part of his face visible and marked 'playing somewhere in England' reached him. Another letter just marked 'To Don Bradman, Australia - please help me. I don't know the address' also reached its destination. The fan mail continued even after his playing days were over and continued, one can safely assume, till his death, more than 52 years after he played his last Test. Much of the fan mail emanated from India, a country in which he enjoyed fanatical following. Keeping in mind the fact that numerically - because of the country's population - Indian cricket fans are the biggest in the world, it is fair to assume that the majority of the fan mail for Bradman would have to be from the sub-continent.

Bradman's cricketing contacts with India are rather limited. He played in only one series against an Indian team in 1947-48. He spent perhaps only a few hours in India when he made a stop over with Lady Bradman in Calcutta in the mid-fifties. But his deeds are well known and In India too he maintained the super celebrity status he enjoyed in every other major cricketing country.

Bradman on his part has always had a soft corner for India and cricketers from this land. In his autobiography 'Farewell to Cricket' he says that the series against India was one of the most enjoyable in his career and a wonderful spirit of camaraderie existed between players of both sides. He also paid handsome tribute to players like Amarnath, Hazare, Phadkar and Mankad. And of course, one must not forget that it was against India that he celebrated one of the special occasions even in his illustrious career. He made his 100th first class century against the touring team in Sydney, an experience he described as "the most exhilarating moment on the field."

In 1985, while presenting Sunil Gavaskar with a memento on the Indian having surpassed his long standing record of 29 Test centuries, he hailed Gavaskar as an ornament to the game. And only a few years ago, he described Sachin Tendulkar as the one whose playing style and approach most closely resembled his.

Any news about Bradman was reported faithfully and featured prominently in the Indian media - even the unhappy events last year when there were a couple of controversies about the misuse of his name. When Bradman turned 90 two years ago, newspapers and magazines in this country highlighted the event prominently with special articles and features. When a news agency put out a story on August 14, 1998 that it was fifty years since Bradman's last innings in Test cricket - his famous last duck at the Oval - publications across the country again gave the story wide publicity. Bradman always guarded his private life carefully and for many years till his death did not give interviews. And so when two intrepid young journalists from Calcutta, Debashish Dutta and Gautam Bhattacharya finally made it to the great man's home in Adelaide and interviewed him around a decade ago, it became an Indian media event. Another journalist colleague of mine, Gulu Ezekiel made it a point to visit the Bradman Museum when he went to cover the Sydney Olympics last year. He picked up a lot of memorabilia and when I met him in Dhaka for the inaugural Test against Bangladesh he was proudly flaunting his most cherished possession - a baggy green cap with `Don Bradman - 99.94' prominently on it. I never saw him take it off.

Some of the most profound things said and written about Bradman have been made by Indians. And perhaps the most significant of them has been the remark of Gavaskar. Congratulated on his record 30th century at Madras in December 1983, when he surpassed Bradman's long standing mark of 29 hundreds in Test cricket, Gavaskar was quick to shrug off the 'record' tag. "Bradman's tally is still the record. It will only be surpassed if a batsman gets 30 hundreds in 52 Tests," was how the Indian batsman put it. Incidentally, Gavaskar got his 30th hundred in his 99th Test and that was why he wanted to set the 'record' straight. And one must not forget that the batsman Bradman said resembled his batting style the most is an Indian. This country then will mourn his death almost as much as Australia.