Batsman of the Century Thirty-seven not out

Only a matter of weeks before that seminal, never-the-same-again day in 1926, the Australians had disembarked at Melbourne at the end of a five-week voyage from England, having surrendered the Ashes for the first time in 14 years, after losing the final Test at The Oval amid scenes of Kennington jubilation. Once the travellers landed, they were chastened to realise that Australia was a country not best pleased at being beaten by the Poms. Recriminations were nasty. Selectors resigned, and scapegoat No. 1 was the hitherto-admired captain Herbie Collins, whose popular nickname `Lucky' had been cancelled forthwith.

Within a few days of returning home, Collins announced his retirement. He took out a licence and became a bookmaker – a `fresh start' to what was to become a sad personal downward spiral. Herbie might have noticed, in the Sydney Morning Herald's sports pages on Nov 11, this small-print, one-paragraph, abridged cricket score from a one-day match the day before at the Sydney Cricket Ground: One-day boys' trial match. Probables 302 for 9 (AF Kippax 58, AA Jackson 53 retd); Possibles 237 (D Mullarkey 64 retd, DG Bradman 37 not out, JN Campbell 5 for 79).

 Don Bradman was just 18. He was from up-country Bowral, where he was an estate agent's clerk, having left school at 14. It was the first time he had trod the SCG. At home the pitches were of coir or canvas matting on concrete, and this was the first time he had played on a turf wicket. He batted at No. 7. On that same page, a brief report ended: `Although on the slow side, Bradman showed supreme confidence, and the further he went the better he shaped. He was one of the few batsmen to leave his crease to the slow deliveries of Campbell.'

A month before, Bradman had been asked by the NSW Cricket Association to attend nets in Sydney: `We are prepared to pay your fare from Bowral and return, and we sincerely trust you will give this matter the consideration its importance warrants.' His father accompanied him by train – Bowral is 82 miles south-west of Sydney– just as he had the only other two times the country boy had visited the big city. The first was as a 12-year-old, still in schoolboy knickerbockers, when they had watched the fifth Ashes Test in Feb 1921, and the first batsman he saw score a half-century was England's lissom Frank Woolley.

The Don: no contest

In fact, in his early teens, tennis was the boy Bradman's first great passion. He won a couple of local junior tournaments, and when at 14 he began work at Percy Westbrook's estate agency, his boss urged him to continue concentrating on his tennis. So in the summer of 1924–25 he played only one game of cricket – making a duck and 66. But the Bowral town side knew a good prospect, and they asked the small lad with the clerk's neat handwriting if he would like to be their match secretary. He would – and in the summer of 1925–26 he batted 23 times in Berrima District League matches. He averaged 94.14. The word soon reached Sydney, and led to his invitation to the boys' trial match the following November.

The second trip to Sydney had been when he was 17. His mother had promised him a new bat `of real English willow' if he scored a century for Bowral in the final of the Berrima District Cup. He scored exactly 300. In Sydney's biggest department store, according to his father later, the young man deliberated for more than an hour before deciding on a close-grained bat made by the Yorkshire firm of William Sykes and signed `Roy Kilner'. It was to serve him well. But not for long. That boys' trial match of Nov 10 led to Bradman being selected for the NSW Southern Districts team for the annual Country Week cricket tournament a fortnight later, where one-day matches were played on five successive days. In each match he batted at No. 3. He had never before faced first-class bowling. At the SCG he scored 43, 24 and 27; at the Parramatta Oval he made 41; and at Manly, 25.

His captain that week, the Sheffield Shield player LW Sieler, remarked: `A fine boy, a good sport, the game is treated by him as a business and he has great ambition to succeed.' So much so that the day after his 25 at Manly, the senior Sydney grade club St George picked him for their Saturday match at Petersham, who fielded the Test bowler Tom Andrews and NSW stalwart Sam Everett.

 Bradman batted at No. 5. His first 50 took an hour. He had reached 98 in 90 minutes when he danced out to on-drive to the boundary for his century. He middled it, but the ball dribbled, as if punctured, to mid-on. No run. His new bat had snapped in two at the splice. A player trotted on with a substitute willow. Next ball, Bradman went to his century with a venomous pull through midwicket. Ten runs later he was run out. It was his first century in grade cricket. Just two seasons later he was playing for Australia.

With `Lucky' Herbie, alas, winning fewer big-money coups at the races than he had hoped, the England team's SS Otranto docked at Fremantle in Oct 1928, to begin their defence of the Ashes under the dashing gaiety of young Chapman (another whose life after cricket would become sadly unsteady, in his case after he had become director of a brewery). Melbourne's Jack Ryder, the much-liked and leathery allrounder –`The good ol' king of good ol' Collingwood'– was now the Australian skipper, and he was none too sure, in his kindly way, when the Sydney lobby demanded that `the boy' Bradman should be pitched straight in to the First Test at Brisbane's Exhibition Ground.

Throughout the century – BD, Before Don, and AD, After Don – no player has remotely got to within one-third of Bradman's scoreboard accomplishments

 Ryder put Bradman in after himself, at No. 7. The kid made 18, clean-bowled by Maurice Tate, England's bonny and tireless pro from Sussex. Maurice cheerfully told the press that, no problem, `this boy's my bunny'. By the end of the series, in which England confidently retained the Ashes, Tate's bunny had played himself in for life with 40 and 58 at Adelaide, and 79 and 112 and 123 and 37 not out in the two Tests at the MCG.

The following English summer of 1930, Sussex's good apple-cheeked Maurice – who remains, at century's end, almost best-of-the-best – was still, well, rabbiting on about `bunnies'. In the First Test at Trent Bridge, true to his word, he clean-bowled Bradman for 8. The Brighton grin was from ear to, well, there. Bradman saw it, and responded with a pinched, shy-boy's determined half-smile. In the next five Test innings of the series, the diminutive, almost hopscotch-dancing, and cruelly dissecting Bradman humiliated Tate and his toiling English confrères for 131, 254, 1, 334 (309 in a single day), 14 (c Duleep b legspinner Peebles), and 232 in the final match at The Oval.

And after that, Bradman quite phenomenally just, well, took it from there … till 1948 when, back for the last time at The Oval, he took his farewell curtain-call. Quite outrageously, and unbelievably, he walked in needing only to hit just one single boundary-four to average exactly 100 every time he had been to the wicket in a Test. Eric Hollies bowled him, second ball with a googly, for 0.

So Bradman ended with a Test batting average of 99.94. Think about 99.94. Nobody in the annals has remotely challenged it. To Sir Donald's Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, every other leading and feted Test batsman is but as high as Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing, the first men to climb Everest. Great and mortal earthly men compared with, well, a heavenly feat beyond compare. Of men who played around as many Tests as Bradman's 52, only England's Herbert Sutcliffe (60.73) managed to average roughly within 40 each innings; far away in the distance from Bradman.

Throughout the century – BD, Before Don, and AD, After Don – no player has remotely got to within one-third of his scoreboard accomplishments. Simply buy Wisden, look at the facts – and then pour yourself a drink. You might only gulp, and then say to yourself that the two nearest, the sublime South African leftie Graeme Pollock (60.97 in 23 Tests) and, with 60.83 in 22 Tests, the quite stupendous West Indian `one-man band' George Headley– the cricket world knew him as the `Black Bradman'– were prodigiously promising enough to have batted themselves even nearer to the Don's 99 had they not, for totally different reasons (respectively, wicked whites-only apartheid and, in the 1930s, the white establishment's patronising fixture-list), been denied top cricket through their prime. But even those two alltime greats could never in truth have out-Bradmanned Bradman.

In Test cricket Bradman hit 29 centuries in only 80 innings; in all first-class cricket he hit 117 in 338 innings, and averaged 95.14 every time he went to the wicket – again leaving all other batsmen (nearest here was the deliciously stylish Indian Vijay Merchant, with 71.22 in 229 innings) more than a despairing, and unbelievable, 23 points behind.

That small-print throwaway paragraph in the SMH in 1926 logged the first time a child trod on a first-class cricket field and was a prophecy which, in its way, changed all sport. No sportsman has ever been so globally recognised as undeniably the best. Except, perhaps – and with very different resonance – the American boxer Jack Johnson. Certainly, the already grand old game of cricket was never remotely the same after Nov 10, 1926.

Batsman of the Century: Sir Donald Bradman

Catch of the Century Ten minus one

In Australia's first innings, Hadlee's 9 for 52 had been bettered in all the century only by Jim Laker at Old Trafford in 1956. On the first day, Australia were reeling at 175 for 8, Hadlee having taken all eight, when the tailender Lawson desperately flailed at a delivery from the Kiwis' tyro change bowler Vaughn Brown.

The ball skewed from the bat high and skywards towards deep third man and the vicinity of Hadlee's fielding position. The great bowler hared around to get beneath the steepler. He could have half-tripped, pretended to lose sight of it in the sun, fallen over or, dammit, just let the thing pop out of his hands after a gallant try. But Hadlee made ground and, on the run, dashingly held the catch to give Brown his first Test wicket – and also, in that one act, to deny himself all ten. Next over, Hadlee dismissed Holland ( caught by Brown!) to take his ninth wicket and wrap up the Australian innings. So he finished with 9 for 52 when, but for that wonderful and unselfish catch, it would have been all 10 for 52, one run better than Laker's all 10 for 53 world record of 1956.

Catch of the Century: Richard Hadlee

 Hadlee: unselfish

County Match of the Century Train takes the strain

Liked a flutter: Lord Tennyson

 Lord Tennyson had captained England in the Ashes series the year before; Calthorpe was to captain them on two West Indian tours. Both men had an Edwardian flamboyance and conviviality, Tennyson perhaps leaning even more towards the Regency. He captained Hampshire from 1919 till 1933, and throughout his chauffeur-butler Walter Livsey was the county's wicketkeeper. Calthorpe won three Blues at Cambridge, but was said never to have so much as met his tutor.

 Tennyson won the toss and put Warwickshire in, although there was nothing much in the pitch. Batting in his Repton cap, Calthorpe (70) and his fellow amateur Reggie Santall (84) scored most of Warwick's 223, Santall breaking two tiles on the new pavilion roof and Calthorpe easily clearing its turret with a six into what were then farming meadows. No matter, his family owned them, and all the vast acreage that is now the Edgbaston Golf Club.

Hampshire's reply began in mid-afternoon. Forty minutes and 53 balls later they were all out for 15 – with the four byes Tiger Smith let through making up more than a quarter of the score. There were eight ducks. Tennyson hit a four, and the No. 4 Phil Mead was left 6 not out. Calthorpe took 4 for 4 and Howell 6 for 7. Hampshire followed on and at close of play were 98 for 3, still needing 110 to avoid an innings defeat on the Thursday. Calthorpe commiserated with Tennyson in the amateurs' bar: `Don't worry, ol' sport. If it finishes early enough tomorrow I'll lay on a late lunch for us amateurs, and what about a decent day's golf on Friday, what?'

`Lunch party?' roared Tennyson, lispingly affronted. `Gowf on Fwiday? I'll tell you what, my good thir, Hampthire will be winning thith damned game by Fwiday!'

`Don't be ridiculous, Lordship,' said Calthorpe, using Tennyson's familiar nickname.

`Plathe your betth, thir,' snorted Lordship.

 Tennyson was a famous gambler (as his unputdownably ripe memoir Sticky Wicket testifies). Livsey was probably even then behind the pavilion polishing the new Rolls-Royce said to have been paid for with £7000 winnings from a bet on which of two flies would defenestrate first.

The late John Arlott, student of all things and Hants in particular, told me of this cricketing wager: ` Calthorpe shook on it at once, and though reports of the stake and the undoubted huge odds vary in telling, undoubtedly the win, however unlikely, was set to be a mighty one for Tennyson.' Arlott added that it was probably the first early night of Tennyson's adult life.

However, there was to be no good start next morning. Howell bowled Mead at once – Hampshire 127 for 4. Tennyson strode to the wicket in his trilby followed at a short distance by Livsey; as ever, Lordship took a last puff at his briar, then tossed it back towards Livsey who retrieved it and retreated, leaving his boss to take guard.

For all his determination, Tennyson only knew to pile into the bowling. He made 45, caught off Calthorpe. At lunch, Hampshire were 177 for 6, still needing 31 to make Calthorpe's openers pad up again. George Brown was at No. 6. The straight-backed, strong countryman left-hander – uninhibited, combative, belligerent – willed the match to turn for his captain. With WR Shirley, Brown put on 85 for the seventh wicket and then, from 274 for 8 (still only 66 ahead) added 177 with the gallant and faithful Livsey for the ninth. The butler had already made two pairs that early summer, and the county committee were muttering about his dual roles.

 Brown was bowled just before the close, and Tennyson had a glass of champagne for him at the pavilion gate. Brown 172, Hampshire 475 for 9 – 267 ahead. Livsey, unbeaten on 90, drove his boss to Stratford in the Rolls for supper, and completed his century next morning to leave Warwickshire to score 314. Calthorpe made 30, Tiger Smith 41 and WG Quaife 40. They were all out for 158. Hampshire had won by 155 runs, and 1923's Wisden noted: `The victory taken as a whole must surely be without precedent in cricket.'

 Tennyson pocketed his cheque from Calthorpe, then told Livsey to drive home alone. Lordship would travel with the team by train. The amateur No. 3 bat HLV `Harry' Day (who had contributed 0 and 15) recalled: `His Lordship led us to the train for Northampton. We all settled down until it was realised his ordered menu had not been heard of, so at a rush we ran for the Southampton train. Bottles popped and the carriage rocked all through southern England.'

County Match of the Century: Warwickshire v Hampshire. 1922

Openers of the Century A pair of them

The century's most long-standing opening partnerships – happily married couples, you might say – have been England's three duos Hobbs and Sutcliffe (who went forth to bat together 38 times), Hutton and Washbrook (54), Gooch and Boycott (49); the enduring Australian mateships of Simpson and Lawry (62) and Taylor and Slater; and the West Indians Greenidge and Haynes, who took guard together at the top of an innings a phenomenal 148 times. They had 16 opening partnerships of three figures.

 Cyril Washbrook, himself in his eighties, said that his partnership with Len Hutton– which embodies England's highest opening stand, 359 against South Africa in 1948–49– was, `and like any worth its salt should be, based on technique, composure, mutual encouragement, and firm friendship'. An attraction of opposites? `I suppose so. Perhaps I was in more of a hurry to take off the shine. I was a hooker, you see. I was the pugnacious one, if you like, to Leonard's calm. But all based on a perfect understanding between the wickets. Which made for a real partnership, didn't it?'

Before his death in 1990, Hutton had agreed: ` Cyril was my best and favourite partner, the ideal: technique, composure, staunchness; a firm friend, too.'

 Washbrook recalled their partnership record at Johannesburg`as if it was yesterday', and going out together after the tea interval, `onto the ground with Len; vast crowd, and this fellow comes out of it and says, Only 30 more for the record, boys. Len looks at me and mutters What's he on about?

` Blow me, I say, not a clue.'

` Well,' says Len, `we'd better get 30 more and see what record it is, eh?'

 Australia's heirs to the green-capped line begun by Ponsford and Woodfull include Mark Taylor and Michael Slater, two attracting opposites – the former methodical, defiantly patient, the latter all vim and get-up-and-go. Said Slater: `Our differing styles are good for each other. We feed off each other, lift the other's game. There were always little trigger-points, perhaps pointing out something halfway through an over, or agreeing to try to swap bowlers if someone is giving one of you a problem. When it is tough going, it is good to know that the person at the other end is right behind you.'

The `opposites' theory down the century has endured as tried and, literally, tested. Before setting up home with Gooch, for instance, Boycott had fruitful partnerships with Bob Barber and John Edrich. Boycott much preferred the former – Barber fluently, even languidly, got on with it and the scoreboard was always on a hum. Edrich was a fine player but too much like Boycott himself – gritty, patient, a porer. Thus the tyro recruit, plodding Gooch, was ideal for Boycott; the poring scholar and the lusty blacksmith.

 Gooch, of course, went on batting for Essex almost to the end of the century. Once Boycott had gone he had 16 other opening partners for England (the same as Hutton before and after Washbrook), including his long-time Essex partner John Stephenson, who played one Test only for England. Stephenson said that when he first went in with Gooch, `the great man would score so quickly that it would sap the bowlers' hearts and confidence. When he was on 50 and I was on 8, it felt like batting on another planet. In the first seasons of our partnership, if Graham wasn't hitting the ball for four all the time he would get annoyed with himself, but as we went on he became increasingly keen on quick singles and fast threes. He says strike rotation is crucial. Not much calling goes on, he just looks up and we go.'

The very best were chalk and cheese all right.

 Desmond Haynes had a broad smile – and a carefree kind of comradeship which charmed the shires and warmed the Middlesex dressing-room when he played for them in the 1980s. In contrast, picture researchers were on a bonus to find photographic evidence that a grin had ever creased Gordon Greenidge's cheeks; he was as solemn in manner as his treatment of a new ball was savage.

 Haynes wore a gold pendant on his necklace inscribed with his philosophy, `Live, Love, Laugh.' Greenidge wore a perpetual frown out there, his coiled, muscular, boxer's shoulders seeming burdened, like those of Atlas, with the troubles of the world. No batsman can have played more blazingly resplendent innings than Greenidge and yet been profiled and praised in print so skimpily. Hale fellows and small-talkers steered well clear of him. Haynes's area of the dressing-room was a cheery space; Greenidge invariably bagged the darkest corner, where he brooded and quietly, obsessively, rearranged his kit into ever more neat and meticulous order.

 Haynes and Greenidge first donned their crimson-cherry caps and passed through the wicket-gate together at Port-of-Spain in 1978, after which bowlers the world over would wake in the night, calling feverishly for long draughts of cold water and telling their wives of the routine nightmare they had just relived: Greenidge and Haynes at the crease. If the one did not get you the other would – but very often they would do so in tandem. When they split they held West Indies' record opening partnerships against England (298), Australia (250), New Zealand (255) and India (296). And with his previous partner, the dazzler Roy Fredericks, Greenidge held the record against Pakistan, a comparatively modest 182.

 Haynes, they say, has much of the upright elegance and unhurried charms of the late Jeff Stollmeyer's batsmanship. But there is a description by the grand Trinidadian philosopher CLR James of the very first of the black West Indian opening batsmen, Clifford Roach– who, alas, could find no regular first-wicket partner – in the early part of the century.

It reads: ` Roach is not unworthy to be mentioned in the same rank as MacArtney. Glover, the fast bowler, sends down a short ball on the off stump. Let any cricketer who wishes to understand what happened take a bat or walking-stick and assume position. Then let him move his right foot back and across as far as it will go, and then let him lift his bat as high as he possibly can, and from that position let it go like a piston at the unfortunate ball. Third man on the boundary might as well be in the slips for all the use he was.' Greenidge to a T – a fierce eye and the vengeful swipe of a Mogul warrior with a scimitar.

They were together for 13 years. When Greenidge retired, Haynes paid tribute: ` Gordon was a marvellous influence on me. He didn't have to say much. Just watching him from the other end was a lesson in itself. You had only to look at his corner of the dressing-room to see how he approached his batting. You went with him and you knew he was ready to stay out there a long, long time. Gordon taught me an enormous amount about batting as well as professionalism. You just looked across at Gordon and said, Man, that's a true pro. I was perfectly happy, and proud, to be second fiddle to him.'

Taking a break: Haynes (standing) and Greenidge prepare to continue their partnership

Openers of the Century: GORDON GREENIDGE AND DESMOND HAYNES

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