Published: Aug 31, 2015, 07:32 AM (IST)
Edited: Aug 26, 2016, 05:00 PM (IST)
January 25, 1929. Don Bradman shattered the calm of Sheffield Shield cricket with an innings of 340 not out against Victoria — his first triple century in First-Class cricket. In this series, Arunabha Sengupta lists several of the firsts of Bradman’s career.
But for the persuasions of a close friend, Don Bradman might not have played in the match against Victoria.
There had been a full month of continuous cricket. The season had been extremely busy, and especially from December 14, 1928 to January 16, 1929, the 20-year-old had either been on the field in taxing matches, in rigorous training sessions at the nets, or travelling from one venue to another in long, hot, stifling and uncomfortable train journeys across Australia. In between there had been serious and successful business meetings as well, with bat makers Wm Sykes Ltd approaching him with the intention of using his name on their products.
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It is one of the curious coincidences of cricket. When Bradman had scored a triple century for Bowral as a young lad, his mother had presented him with a Sykes bat.
At this point however, after his dual failure as an opening batsman at Adelaide against South Australia, Bradman felt that he needed a break.
Yet, this friend persuaded him to play at SCG. And Bradman walked in shortly before lunch on the first day, back in his favourite No. 3 position, after Archie Jackson and Alan Fairfax had put on 76 for the first wicket.
One needs to mention here that during the last couple of months Bradman had stood on the field, watching Wally Hammond, his great rival for the next two decades, pile on runs in indefatigable fashion. He had fielded through the 225 that the Gloucestershire great had scored against New South Wales; had substituted for the injured Bill Ponsford in the second Test and watched Hammond score 251; and during the MCG Test he had retrieved ball after ball as the stalwart had hammered 200.
As he walked out to bat on January 24, Bradman’s highest First-Class score stood at 134. It would not be stretching it too far to say that Hammond had whetted his appetite, and it was to grow into an insatiable one.
It was ruthless efficiency from the start as Hans Ebeling and Bert Ironmonger, among others, were tamed. Fairfax and Bradman put on 161; the master steadily got to his 50 in 85 minutes and carried on with the regularity of a well-oiled run-machine. Fairfax fell for 104, but Bradman’s march remained relentless. As Stan McCabe joined him at the fall of the third wicket, a splendid partnership was embarked upon. In three hours and nine minutes, he had got to his century and by the end of the day was batting on 129. New South Wales finished the first day at 358 for 3.
A boundary early on the second morning took him past 1,000 runs for the season for the first time in his career. There would be 17 full seasons he would play including this one, across Australian and English summers, and he would pass 1,000 in 16 of them. The only time he would fail to do so in a complete season would be 1938-39, when he would get a mere 919 in 7 innings with 6 hundreds at 153.16.
The partnership with McCabe amounted to 118. By lunch Bradman had slowed down as he approached his 200. He went into the break at 196 and got to the landmark just after resumption. It had taken him 357 minutes.
After the fall of Alec Marks, he was joined by Reginald Bettington. It was then that Bradman accelerated, rushing along to his huge score, hooking, pulling, driving and cutting with ease. “While he dispatched deliveries to the fine leg, straight drive, square and back-cut boundary, he wore a cheerful grin,” read one of the newspaper reports.
200 to 250 was covered in just 34 minutes with a series of powerful square cuts. After that his rate of scoring dropped a fraction, but the attack was methodically flayed around the park. The 300 was brought up just before tea, in 453 minutes. The last hundred had come in just 96 minutes.
This was the first of the six 300-plus scores in his career.
120 were added with Bettington who got 40. Jack Fingleton joined him next, and managed an unbeaten 25 as 111 were put on for the unfinished 7th wicket stand. When Tommy Andrews, deputising for Alan Kippax, declared the innings at 713 for 6, Bradman was unbeaten on 340, scored in 488 minutes with 38 fours.
This was by far the longest stay at the wicket for Bradman at that stage of his career.
It had been a chanceless effort, the only blemishes being three run out opportunities off his own bad calls, which put his wicket at peril at 69, 76 and 310. Bad throws ensured that he carried on breaking one record after another.
There had been only one triple century in the Sheffield Shield earlier — an unbeaten 315 by Kippax against Queensland in the previous season.
At 20 years 151 days Bradman also became the youngest batsman to score 300, the previous record-holder being Victor Trumper at 21 years 269 days. Frank Worrell would better this feat while scoring 308 not out for Barbados against Trinidad in 1943-44, at the age of 19.
Bradman’s 340 remained the highest score by a batsman under 21 before Aftab Baloch scored 428 for Sind against Baluchistan in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy match at Karachi in 1974, at the exact same age of 20 years and 151 days.
The monumental score had been achieved with a brand new willow. Bradman never used it again, preferring to preserve it as a souvenir. Among the many congratulatory messages that he received, there was a letter from the grand-nephew of the late Billy Murdoch, the old Australian captain. In 1882, Murdoch had walked in to bat at No. 3 for New South Wales against Victoria at SCG and had scored 321.
What followed?
Coming back to the Shield match, a haul of six wickets by Hal Hooker saw Victoria bowled out for 265 in the first innings. This included the dismissals of Ebeling, Herbert Gamble and Ironmonger to finish the innings with a hat-trick. However, following on, the Victorians batted with a lot more purpose. Basil Onyons got a hundred; John Scaife and Len Darling scored 90s. The visitors were 510 for 7 when time ran out.
Before this match, Bradman had given plenty of indications of being an accumulator of huge scores, but they had been limited to minor leagues. With this triple-hundred the phenomenon crossed over to the world of top-grade cricket.
It was the era of big scores, with Ponsford hammering two 400-plus innings in 1923 and 1927, Hammond scoring double-hundred after double-hundred, and Bill Woodfull and Kippax preferring to bat for as long as they could. Hence, it is a mistake to repeat the myth that Bradman started the tradition of scripting mammoth innings while the rest threw their wickets away after reaching hundreds.
It is more accurate to say that with this innings Bradman joined the ongoing party, and before long would convert these rare events to clockwork regularity and precision bordering on commonplace.
Brief Scores:
New South Wales 713 for 6 decl. (Archie Jackson 43, Alan Fairfax 104, Don Bradman 340*, Stan McCabe 60, Alec Marks 56, Reginald Bettington 40) drew with Victoria 265 (Basil Onyons 61, John Scaife 42; Hal Hooker 6 for 42) and 510 for 7 (Basil Onyons 131, John Scaife 91, Len Darling 96, Harold Lansdown 48*, Thomas Bird 63).
(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history of cricket, with occasional statistical pieces and reflections on the modern game. He is also the author of four novels, the most recent being Sherlock Holmes and the Birth of The Ashes. He tweets here)
