Sir Don Bradman - A tribute

It was 27^th August 1908, on this day in a small town ‘Cootamundra’, belonging to the state of New South Wales in Australia, a boy was born. At that time only god might be knowing that this boy was none other than the legendary Sir Donald Bradman!

Sir Don Bradman – only these 3 words are enough to describe the Australian cricket of that time. Bradman started playing cricket when he was just 6 years old. This kid had lots of talent & with all the hard work, which he did for around 10 years, he finally succeeded to get into the first class cricket in Australia. But that was the struggling period for him. In those days no one would have believed if anyone had said that he will be the greatest cricketer of all time. But Bradman was not ready to give up! He continued his practice and at last that day came!

It was 30^th January 1928, New South Wales coach had no other option than taking Bradman into team(as many of their players were injured). But Bradman made the most of this opportunity. It was NSW vs Victoria, NSW supporters were not happy to see Bradman opening the innings. Bradman knew that this might be his 1^st chance, or the last one.

He opened the innings and slowly and steadily he constructed the innings. He played some wonderful shots in that innings. People understood that this man has lots of talent. He scored 134* with 14 classic boundries. After this game he was famous and he made debute in Australia’s national team very soon.The start of his career was not that good. He managed to score just 18 & 1 runs in two innings of the 1^st test match of his career which he played against England. As a result of that he was kept as a 12^th man in next test match. But once again on 3^rd January 1929, he was selected in the team & since then he got only the success in his cricket career. In some of the matches he played, he scored 112,340*,123,157. Those were just unforgettable innings.

He was such a great batsman that once he scored century in mere 22 balls, just unbelievable! In 1^st over(that time it was a 8 balls over) he scored 33 runs, in 2^nd he scored 40 runs and in 3^rd he hit 27 runs. He deserved a century on that day. One more innings was one of his bests. He had a partnership of 346 runs with his fellow team mate Fingelton. Those were the golden days of his career. A hundred or double hundred was an easy task for him. He had 10 double hundreds on his name. In his cricket career he had also scored 2 triple hundreds. But the intresting thing which many people don’t know is, once he was on 299 and the 11^th batsman got out! Since that day no one in cricket history has managed to score 3 triple hundreds. Only Lara and Sehwag are the ones who have scored 2 triple hundreds but none of them managed to go to 299 for one more time. That proves Bradman’s greatness. Sir Don’s batting style was aggressive. If he would have been playing in these days, no wonder that all the batting records of T20 would have been on his name.

Bradman played last match of his career on 27^th july 1948. Unfortunately he got out on a duck. He broke many international record and crated new ones too. In 52 test matches he scored 6696 runs with an Incredible average of 99.94(Greatest of all time). His best score was 340*. The legend finally died on 25^th February 2001 at the age of 93(just missed the hundred!) Finally a Grand Salute for this Legend for enriching this game of cricket with his excellence!