Written shortly after Sir Donald Bradman’s death in 2001, Gideon Haigh looked at the legacy of the greatest batsman ever to grace the game.
Gideon Haigh is a cricket writer and historian. His most recent book is Crossing the Line: how Australian cricket lost its way
This article was first published in the 2002 edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
The story of Sir Donald Bradman always involved more than cricket – more even than sport. One can only marvel at the statistics, and the one batting average that nobody need ever look up. Yet, in its degree and duration, especially in Australia, Bradman’s renown is as much a source of wonder: he was, as Pope wrote of Cromwell, “damned to everlasting fame”.
Few figures, sporting or otherwise, have remained an object of reverence for more than half a century after the deeds that formed the basis of their reputation. Fewer still can have justified an autobiography at the age of 21, and the last of many biographies at the age of 87, without surfeiting or even satisfying public curiosity. But with Bradman’s death on February 25, 2001 comes a question: what difference will it make to his legend now that, for the first time, it has obtained a life independent of his corporeal existence?
Yet what was truly noteworthy about the articles was not that they appeared, but that nothing resembling them had appeared before, that none of Bradman’s soi-disant “biographers” had treated his family and financial lives other than perfunctorily. Indeed, it may be that Bradman’s most ardent apologists end up doing him the gravest disservice. Identifying a great sportsman isn’t difficult: the criteria are relatively simple. Designating a great man entails rather more than a decree, even prime ministerial; some intellectual and historical contestation must be involved. Credulity invites scepticism – and, unlike trade names, reputations cannot be declared off limits by the wave of a legislative wand.
