Australia celebrates as Bradman enters nineties (27 Aug 1998)

27 August 1998

Australia celebrates as Bradman enters nineties

By Peter FitzSimons

HE'S 90 today. Sir Don Bradman. The Don. Our Don. As far as we Australians know, he'll be spending it in much the same manner as he spends most birthdays - quietly at home, with friends and family.

The cricketing community, though, are in a far more boisterous mood, with 1,300 of them journeying from all over Australia to Sir Donald's home town of Adelaide to celebrate the long life and extraordinary times of Donald George Bradman.

He is, of course, an Australian phenomenon, the true dimensions of which can only be properly appreciated when you consider that a sportsman who first came to fame in the 1920s is still the most revered figure in the nation 70 years later. The shimmering ethereal figure that Sir Donald occupies in the realms of Australian mythology, floating somewhere there just above Ayers Rock, seems to rest on three columns in the sky.

Numbers: 99.94. and say no more. It is not simply that Sir Donald's Test batting average is better than anyone else's ever, forever and ever, amen, it is, of course, by just how much it is better. In many sports, comparing people from different eras and nations is always problematic, because there is no easy ready-reckoner as to whether, the full-back of one nation in the 1990s is better than the full-back of another nation from the 1960s, but cricket, of course, has no such problem.

Sir Donald demonstrated beyond dispute what one of ours could accomplish on the international sporting field. We not only loved it when the Don scored 334 runs in a 1930 Test at Leeds, we positively outdid ourselves in ecstasy when a London newspaper trumpeted the two grateful words, "HE'S OUT!" when his innings finally did close - because it was acknowledgement from others as to just how great our bloke was.

Then there is the enigmatic nature of the man himself. While many sportspeople who have enjoyed a single hundredth of his fame are seen to have their hands up for every endorsement they can get their hands on, would go to the opening of a wound and are only too keen to let anyone with a camera into the most personal details of their lives, Sir Donald has always steered a long way away from all of the above.

Since his retirement in 1948, he has never remotely been seen to cash in on the reverence in which he is held, and still lives in the same house he bought with his late wife, Lady Jessie Bradman, in 1935.

So who is the man who actually lies beneath all this mythology? I, for one, have absolutely no idea and like everyone else am unlikely ever to find out. In the absence of meeting him, though, I like to collect stories about him some true; others, no doubt, apocryphal.

My favourite comes from the former Australian fast bowler Mike Whitney, who once recounted the story of a chance meeting he and Test batsman Dean Jones had with Sir Donald in the late 1980s. After a day's play in a Test match against the West Indies, he and Jones were having a quiet chat outside the dressing-room when none other than the great man walked past.

Jones, being a particularly confident young man, leapt to his feet and warmly pumped Sir Donald's hand, profuse in his exclamations of respect, profound in the expression of what an extraordinary honour it was to meet him.

"Tell me, Sir Donald," he asked, "if you were still playing Test cricket today, what do you think your Test batting average would be?"

The way Whitney tells it, Our Don paused almost 30 seconds before replying, obviously doing some serious mental calculations.

"Wellll," he eventually began, in that wispy voice of his, "it's very hard to say, but . . . I'd say I'd probably be around the 75-run mark . . . "

No sooner had Sir Donald come out with the figure of "75" than the inestimable Jones began to pump up like a frill-necked lizard. As it happened, he, Jones, was himself enjoying one of his best summers with the bat, where he was averaging an incredible 65 in Test cricket himself, and it was almost too much to think that at that very moment he was within coo-ee of the finest batsman there ever was. Too much!

Jones was just letting the full glory of it all break upon him, when Sir Donald coughed, and decided to add a rider. "Mind you," he said ruminatively, "you have to remember I'm over 80 years old now . . . "

And now he's over 90. Happy birthday, Sir Donald.

Legend out of limelight

By E W Swanton

SIR Donald Bradman sounded his usual spry, clear-headed self when I congratulated him on the telephone at his Adelaide home on the eve of his birthday, though he has just recovered from a nasty attack of flu.

While a celebratory dinner will be attended by 1,300 in Adelaide this evening he will be dining at home with his son and daughter and family. As he sensibly explained: "I had a stroke two years ago and my doctor tells me to avoid undue stress."

Does he still go round the Kooyonga Links in fewer shots than his age? "Not since last year." He is not sure his legs will stand up to further golf, but I have a feeling that he will be testing them out once more come the Australian spring.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)