“That inscrutable object of adulation”

A lecture I once gave... [the title comes from an essay by RS White “Don Bradman: That Inscrutable Object of Adulation” Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region, ed. Bruce Bennett and Dennis Haskell (Centre for Studies in Australian Literature, Nedlands, 1992), pp. 193 - 200.]


'Every culture throws up its heroes: figures that take on iconic status for the culture and in some way embody the dreams and aspirations of the culture. In Australia we have several: Ned Kelly, Simpson and his donkey, Breaker Morant, Gough Whitlam, Dawn Fraser and others. Study of these figures is a short-hand way of analysing a culture. But that doesn't mean it is a simple matter...

And so I have chosen to give an hour to thinking about Don Bradman: partly at least because of my own passion for cricket and the availability of resources about him; but mostly because he is a remarkable figure, a person so dominant in his field that his achievements seem almost superhuman.

And yet Bradman remains an enigmatic figure: an idol of Australians who yet remained somewhat aloof; a tall poppy who managed himself with modesty; a man who to the end replied to hundreds of fan letters and yet was almost reclusive. It striking that Australians should so revere a man in so many ways unlike them. Why, we dare to ask? And what does Bradman symbolise for Australians?

The history of Australia as a unified entity is comparatively brief. Though to us it seems as if states rights are a fairly insignificant matter, in the nineteenth century the states could not even agree on a common railway gauge. While the various football codes and other sports were regionally aligned, cricket evolved as a uniquely national sport in a federated Australia. To this day, no other national sport captures the imagination of the nation in quite the same way; no other sport is so central to our cultural self-identity. Only swimming perhaps is a rival.
Cricket was first played in Australia in December 1803 by the officers of the ship Calcutta. Australian natives quickly took to the sport and were aided in the spread and growth of the game by the waves of fresh immigrants arriving from cricketing England. Cricket was a suitable game for our climate; and it finds a place in both rural and urban settings quite comfortably.
The first test match was played in Melbourne between Australia and England, before Australia had even become a nation. Much to everybody’s surprise, Australia won by 45 runs. Finally, the young upstart nation had found a way to compete against the home country: a way to shine in international company and particularly to gain the notice of the Home Country.

The Boy from Bowral
Donald George Bradman was born in Cootamundra in August 1908. He was the son of carpenter. In 1911 the family moved to Bowral, where the young Don grew up in a cricketing environment. As a young boy he entertained himself at home by hitting a golf ball against a cylindrical corrugated iron water tank. With this tricky game he honed his hand-eye co-ordination. In 1950 he wrote “I can understand how it must have developed the co-ordination of brain, eye and muscle which was to serve me so well in important matches later on.”
He does not ever seem to have been particularly religious, though he sang as a youngster in the church choir at Bowral...

The Bodyline Series
...
Bodyline was a watershed: here was a genuine cause for indignation against the colonial power. Australians revered the English and felt very much part of the British Empire: and yet the values that they felt essential to that Empire, embodied in the game of cricket, were here being treated with cynicism and contempt by the honoured representatives of England herself. The myth of glorious mother England was exposed as a fallacy; just as it would more seriously in the Second World War. And secretly perhaps Australians felt proud: proud that our Don Bradman was so good that the English had to sell out their values to try and defeat him.

The Invincibles
We pass over the great swathe of Bradman’s career that ran from 1933 to 1947, including the war years when no cricket was played and when Bradman’s health took a turn for the worse. It was in 1948 that he returned to England for the fourth and last time as a player and now as captain.

The tour was long anticipated: though the clouds of war had lifted, the English were still suffering the deprivations of food rationing and the various other effects of an arduous struggle. Bradman led an all-star Australian line-up unsurpassed for sheer all-round talent and maturity until perhaps the present day. The team remains the only team of any nation to have gone through England without losing a single game. Against Essex they were able to score 721 in a single day. And they won the tests 4 to nil.

Bradman’s last test was to be at the Oval in London. As walked to the wicket he was not aware that if he scored just four more runs he would be able to boast a test average of 100 (the next nearest player in the low 60s). The Englishman gave him three cheers. Then he settled over the bat. The bowler was Eric Hollies, a leg spinner from Warwickshire. The first ball Bradman played carefully. The second ball turned the other way, deceived Bradman and crashed in to the stumps. He had been bowled for a duck, and so his average remained at an incredible 99.94. Though he was so extraordinarily dominant in the game over twenty years, his last innings was a reminder that even Bradman was mortal.

So what do we make of this amazing figure in Australian social history? Bradman was no larrikin, no show pony – unlike many of our other sporting heroes. The Bradman museum website offers this conclusion:
Don Bradman has offered all Australians the same silver-lined story. The hope to achieve great heights from humble beginnings.



This is too simplistic in my view. The Bradman myth is far more complex.
He was a private, modest and direct man who was undemonstrative and reserved. He was not a drinker and enjoyed playing the piano to relax. He was not a womaniser or a gambler. In fact, he caused some dissension in the ranks of his team-mates because he was not seen to relish carousing.

Perhaps his quite reservation was in fact a reminder of what a previous generation actually admired in a person: a steely resolve and a self-discipline, a resourcefulness and a dedication that was needed to survive in the midst of the Great Depression. He was not flashy or flighty: he was just very very good at batting.


Since his death in 2001, Bradman’s character has come under more scrutiny. Suggestions of some ruthlessness in his business dealings in South Australia as a stockbroker have been aired; also Bradman’s parsimony and conservatism as a cricket administrator has been criticised by a younger generation of players, now themselves esteemed commentators (Ian Chappell being chief among them).


Certainly it mattered as it always has that England be the vanquished. Bradman perhaps best represented our belief in ourselves as a new nation ready to throw off the shackles of colonial influence and go it alone with sheer resourcefulness, native talent and iron determination. The friendly environment of sport was a lot less awkward than a war of independence. But there was still something of the cheeky little brother in Australian's love of sticking it to the Poms. Perhaps, as Australia passes from adolesence into adulthood as a nation, figures like Bradman will seem less important.