Sir Donald (The Don) Bradman

Well, I know these types of posts may not be of interest to family and friends but in the spirit of broadening ones knowledge of culture I am posting this one. Also in the spirit of the Nolen's being in England then cricket is appropriate.


Donald Bradman (of Oz) is considered the greatest batsman in the history of Test Cricket. It is hard to compare the statistics of cricket to baseball. In cricket they do not have what I would call a batting average but they do have what is called a Career Test Batting Average which is the average number of runs hit in per Test. A century (100 runs) is very impressive for one Test in ones career and many batters collect a century or more off and on. But no one has a Career Test Batting Average that comes close to a century except for Donald Bradman. The Don has an average of 99.94 runs for his career (20 years) test batting average and most likely would have stayed over 100 runs if it were not for scoring a duck (or scoring zero) runs at his last at bat before retiring. To put Bradman's accomplishment into perspective then looking at the next closest batsman you will find an average of 60.97 runs. And this record stands still today even though Bradman retired in 1948.

While in NZ we heard alot about Bradman who was at the time still alive. He passed on in 2001. He was highly respected and universally liked. I once saw a picture taken of Bradman shaking Babe Ruth's hand in the stands of a Major League Baseball game. A very interesting contrast to say the least.

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