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Don Bradman’s Twenty-20 cricket style

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Bradman considers Adelaide Oval to be the most scenic of the Test venues he played in his long and illustrious career. But the prettiest Ground he played on was Brockton Point, Canada. “You look across the bay and the behind the bowler’s arm the water ran around the back and you’d see the Ferries lazily playing along at the back of the sight screen” he remarked.

Don was not only a test cricketer but he played twenty-20 cricket as well in test match cricket as well. He scored two triple centuries, 17 double hundreds and 10 centuries to finish with an astonishing average of 99.94. But for Bradman’s first ball dismissal in his final innings he could have crossed 100 runs average in each of the innings played in test cricket. While scoring a triple hundred he scored one before lunch, one before tea and one in between tea and close of play to remain unbeaten 300 plus at the end of the day. He was given the honour Sir by the Queen Elizabeth. During his entire career, Don Bradman scored 46 sixes illustrating how rarely he lofted the ball. However, during his knock of 256 for Lithgow at Blackheath, New South Wales in a second-class fixture, Bradman and Wendell-Bill added 102 in three 8 ball overs. The Don’s contribution was 100 in that.

The sequence:

First Over: 6,6,4,2,4,4,6,1 –     Total 33 runs
Second Over: 6,4,4,6,6,4,6,4 – Total 40 runs
Third over: 1,6,6,1,1,4,4,6   –     Total 29 runs
In all 102 runs off 24 balls (i.e) in three 8 ball overs.

Bradman is the only skipper to have won a five test series after losing the first two games till 1970s. That was against England in Australia in 1936-37. When Don’s team lost at Brisbane and Sydney he had two ducks.  In the next three tests, he scored 270, 212 and 169 runs. Hedley Verity, England left-arm spinner got Bradman out eight times in Tests, the most by any bowler. It wasn’t 100 all the way for Bradman in the three tests he played at Old Trafford. He didn’t even reach a fifty in four innings averaging 27. Batting in the fourth innings in Australia, Bradman got no hundreds in eight tests (averaging 46.83).  Of these Australia lost five won two and had drawn 1. He was not only a Bodyline player before the World Wars but also a Twenty-20 player of the present generation of contemporaries.

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)

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