Tuesday, August 6, 2002 On the streets of Sydney in 1930, despite the distractions of a savage economic depression and a savvy thoroughbred called Phar Lap, only one name was tripping off everyone's lips: Don Bradman. Seventy-two years on and, to the casual observer at least, little has changed. For the past week Pitt Street, Sydney's main shopping thoroughfare, has been festooned with posters beckoning passers-by to drop into Borders bookshop and meet "The Expert On Sir Donald Bradman".

What? Surely not Jack Fingleton, Bradman's not-always-admiring team-mate, after all these years? Not Lady Jessie, The Don's "greatest partner" of all, rising from the dead?

Actually, no. In Sydney in the year 2002 the man everyone's talking about is not, strictly speaking, Bradman, but Bradman's self-appointed posthumous mouthpiece Roland Perry. Bradman's Best Ashes Teams, launched this week, is Perry's second volume of The Don's hits and memories since the almighty one shuffled back to the pavilion for the last time 18 months ago.

Perry has dashed off umpteen books on cricket in the last half-dozen years, most of them selling like Victoria Bitter and being roundly canned in the pages of Wisden. Most of them, as a matter of fact, are scattered round Borders, like fleas on a dog's back, in readiness for this afternoon's book-signing session. There's Bradman's Best, Perry's stodgy offering of last year, crucified by Francis Wheen in the latest Wisden Almanack as "an over-hyped stew of leftovers".

Oh, and there's Bold Warnie, of which Jamie Grant wrote in Wisden Australia: "The title is the book's best point … No real sense of Warne as either a cricketer or a human being is conveyed." And in a far corner I can spy Waugh's Way ("abysmally dull," said Gideon Haigh in Wisden Cricket Monthly), The Don ("as much substance as a comic book," intoned Haigh again) and Captain Australia, Perry's pipsqueak rewrite of Ray Robinson's fun-filled On Top Down Under. Captain Australia, wrote Haigh, is "bland", "pedestrian", "irksome" and laced with "ponderous clichés, execrable puns, and recitations of scores and averages". The cover's quite nice, though.

Haigh, Australia's pre-eminent cricket biographer, is a notorious Perry-pincher. A couple of years ago he even indulged in a spot of Perry-bashing with Shane Warne in an interview published in WCM. Warne, the subject of two Perry biographies, admitted that he "read a little bit" of the first one and "didn't bother with the next". More surprising was Warne's revelation that he had met Perry for the first time only a day earlier. "He said: `Hello, I'm Roland Perry.' I said: `Hi.' And that was it … It's frustrating to have all these people write about your life, to have them speak to people about you, when they really have no idea what you're like."

If it's frustrating for Warne, then how frustrating must it be for Bradman? The Don cannot answer back. And it makes you wonder: what would the publicity-shy little bloke have to say about all this if he were still around and able to stand up for himself?

But he's not, of course, and he can't. Which is why, at 1 o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon, a gentle trickle of middle-aged men are ambling up to the balding, amiable-looking gent in the purple tie. They are not exactly falling over themselves with excitement, but they seem happy enough to unbelt $49.95 in return for an autograph, a natter and yet another beefy hardback with Bradman's mug on the front.

Perry sits behind a desk, smiling toothily. An attractive blonde woman is hovering. But there are no children to be seen and, by 1.15pm, there is no-one at all. Just a bloke in a purple tie, looking slightly less chipper than he did 10 minutes ago, and a shop assistant. It's a far cry from the hordes of groupies that used to shadow Bradman in the hope of seeing the great Don bend down to tie his shoelaces. But, then, Roland Perry - no matter how much he may wish otherwise - is not Don Bradman.

In fairness to Perry, Bradman's best Ashes XIs are marginally less preposterous than his World XI of last year, which featured four specialist batsmen, five specialist bowlers and the wicketkeeper Don Tallon - Test average 17.13 - at No. 6. But only marginally.

This time round, Dennis Lillee is the only player from the last 38 years to crack the XI of either Australia or England. There is no Greg Chappell. No Warne. And Ian Botham, who beat Australia almost on his own in 1981, is left carrying the drinks.

It feels cold-hearted to quibble with Bradman's endearing selection of Charlie Macartney, who blasted three straight hundreds against the Poms at age 40 and must have been spectacular to watch. But equally it seems tough on Steve Waugh, whose Ashes record - 2868 runs at 62.34 - is second only to The Don's.

And if we're talking Ashes records, then Bill Lawry (2233 runs at 48.54) and Bobby Simpson (1405 at 50.17) should have edged out Bill Ponsford (1558 at 47.21). Allan Border (3222 at 55.55) is streets ahead of Neil Harvey (2416 at 38.34). Warne's 118 wickets at 22.82 is superior to the tallies of Bill O'Reilly (102 wickets at 25.36) and Clarrie Grimmett (106 wickets at 32.44). Even Terry Alderman, who averaged almost six wickets per Ashes Test compared to Ray Lindwall's four, can count himself unlucky.

As for England, Hedley Verity (59 wickets at 28.06) is fortunate to get the nod over Jim Laker (79 at 18.27) and Derek Underwood (88 at 26.26). Ditto Alec Bedser, whose 104 wickets at 27.49 pales against Bob Willis's 123 at 24.37. And the absence of David Gower, 3037 runs at 46.02, suggests Bradman had no eye for fine art.

A special bonus of Bradman's Best Ashes Teams is Bradman's top 10 Ashes batting and bowling performances. Gower's 123 at Sydney in 1990-91 is the only post-1956 feat to rate a mention.

The implication is clear: Bradman was a tedious fuddy-duddy who thought the players of his generation were faster, sharper and tougher than anyone since. It is an absurd proposition. It also runs contrary to the impression Bradman gave when he was alive. OK, so he wasn't a card-carrying leftie. But he was no dinosaur either.

The best thing might be for publishers to give The Don a breather. Although the definitive warts-and-all Bradman biography has yet to be written, the superfluous twaddle spewing on to the market at present is actually tarnishing, rather than polishing, the Bradman legend. Time for a little silent reflection please, Mr Perry.

Back at Borders, meanwhile, it is 1.40pm and Perry, 20 minutes ahead of schedule, has given up the ghost and gone home. All that remains is an unattended desk with a stack of books on it. And that poster: The Expert On Sir Donald Bradman.

Back in 1930, of course, Bradman's name regularly adorned newsstand posters on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, London and Leeds. Bradman Bats And Bats And Bats, boomed one. Bradman Versus England, screamed another. And, more succinctly, He's Out ...

I wonder what those witty headline-writers would say about Bradman today if they read Roland Perry's new book. He's Out Of His Mind, perhaps?

Bradman/Perry's Best Ashes Teams
Australia 1 Bill Ponsford, 2 Arthur Morris, 3 Don Bradman, 4 Neil Harvey, 5 Charlie Macartney, 6 Keith Miller, 7 Don Tallon (wk), 8 Ray Lindwall, 9 Dennis Lillee, 10 Bill O'Reilly, 11 Clarrie Grimmett, 12th man Richie Benaud.

England 1 Jack Hobbs, 2 Len Hutton, 3 Denis Compton, 4 Peter May, 5 Wally Hammond, 6 WG Grace, 7 Godfrey Evans (wk), 8 Fred Trueman, 9 Alec Bedser, 10 Sydney Barnes, 11 Hedley Verity, 12th man Ian Botham.

Chris Ryan is a former managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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