Year 11 – 10 Modern History Assessment Task
Term 1, February 2003
Sir
Donald
Bradman
By Haesang Chung(10XMH)
Donald George Bradman was born on 27th August 1908 in a town named Cootamundra, which is located in western New South Wales. Since the age of twelve, he played cricket for his school, and blossomed as a prodigious scorer. He was selected to play Sheffield Shield for New South Wales in 1927, and a year later, he was selected in the Australian Test Team to play in the First Test against England in Brisbane. ‘The Boy of Bowral’ received tumultuous receptions from the crowd every time and was called for his first tour in England in late 1930, after he impressed the country by scoring a World record 452 runs not out for New South Wales against Queensland at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
“No other batsman flashed quite the kind of lightning with which Bradman illuminated the world." – R.S Whitington (cricket historian and journalist). In his First Test against England, he made 236 runs, the highest score made by any batsman on his first tour of any country. During the 1930 tour in England, Bradman scored almost 3000 runs at an average of 98.66 runs, including 334 runs in the Third Test. Bradman endured to show his legendary feats in the early 1930s, as his average was over 200 runs in First Class Cricket. His incredible batting skills, which slaughtered opposing bowlers, resulted into a historically notorious tactic used, called ‘Bodyline’, which was implemented in the 1932-33 Test Series against England by English captain Douglas Jardine because of Bradman’s relentless superiority at the crease. He was limited to an average of 56.57 runs, which was a high average for most batters, but just a low amount for him. However, he resumed as a prolific scorer until his retirement in 1948, finishing the most dominant and an unrivalled career ever in cricket history by averaging 99.94 runs in Test Matches, including a record of 31 double centuries in First Class Matches.