Bradman and I
By C. K. ALLEN
FOR reasons which will appear, a powerful bond has always existed between Sir Donald Bradman and myself, and when he omitted to send me a complimentary copy of his Farewell to Cricket—well, well, he is doubtless a busy man-1 thought that the magnanimous thing was to buy it. I have now read it from first to last, and that is more than I can say of all the books which 1 feel it my duty to buy or borrow.
Let me hasten to explain, however, that this is not going to be either a review or one of those King Willowy cameos. I have not the literary genius for that sort of thing. I have followed cricket keenly all my life, but I have always been under the prosaic impression that it was a game. When, however, I read some of our more accomplished cricket litterateurs, I perceive that it is
really a kind of mystic sacrament, or tribal rite, or lyrical ballad, or Trojan epic. Well, epics always bored me, probably because I suffered too much from them in youth, and I would rather keep them out of the playing-fields (Waterloo notwithstanding). I admire and envy good cricketers, but it is fifty years since I regarded them as demigods. I also admire good writers (and I could name some) on a good game, but when they go all literary, in what D. H. Lawrence used to call the " would-be " manner, then, I confess, I begin to yawn.
No, this is not a deathless contribution to the cricket saga, but merely a trifling reverie, I trust of the " thought-provoking " kind, on what I admit is a well-worn theme—namely, the strange con- trasts and chances of the human lot. For, as you shall learn, Sir Donald and I started from much the same point, and yet it cannot be denied that our careers have diverged considerably. I dare say that I regret the difference more than he does. I rather fear, indeed, that he may not even have noticed it.
Of course, I started rather earlier than he did Sir Donald was- born in 1907. Years before that I was sitting for the moderate half-price of sixpence, on the famous Hill of the Sydney Cricket Ground watching great matches in the midst of the toughest guys— known in those days as " larries "—and the most expert and vociferous barrackers that Australia could produce. Had I that dithyrambic gift which I have mentioned I could tell of stirring encounters seen from that Olympia ; of R. E. Foster's 287 on a vicious wicket ; of the bowling (to be alliterative) of Barnes, Bosanquet. Blythe and Braund ; of that match, which Sir Pelham Warner must remember vividly, when the barrackers, impatient of delay through rain, bombarded with bottles (and there were many bottles among them !) the concrete cycle-racing track which then encircled the Sydney ground. But I will not be tempted. My point is simply that, in one sense and with all modesty, I have a knowledge of the game which Sir Donald can never claim, because he never saw Trumper and Duff and Noble and Hill and all those brave ones who lived before Agamemnon. He certainly never
captained any of those matches, as I and my disreputable friends frequently did from the Hill. He may claim, with some-plausi-
bility, a rather more extensive practical experience of the modern development of the game ; but as for that, it is notorious that cricket is not what it was in 1907, simply because, as all my generation will agree, nothing is what it was in 1907. That, of course, is what is wrong with the world.
Biographers will not fail to notice striking similarities between us. Thus, we were both born in Australia. Even though about a thousand miles separated our birthplaces, we both undoubtedly have the international status of dinkum Aussies. Again, we both played on the Sydney Cricket Ground. True, I played once, as a schoolboy, and made a dashing 15 not out, before about a hundred people, while he played oftener and made rather more runs before somewhat larger crowds. But neither he nor anybody else can rob me of the glory of my first and last appearance on that incomparable arena. Feet that have once trodden the turf of the Sydney Cricket Ground can never, believe me, be the same feet again —and you may interpret that how you will.
What biographers will not know, and that is why I am telling them, is the extraordinary similarity in our early training in cricket. This is Sir Donald's account of it:
" At the back of our home was an 800-gallon water tank
set on a round brick stand From the tank to the laundry door was a distance of about eight feet. The area under-foot was cemented. . . . Armed with a small cricket stump (which 1 used as a bat) I would throw a golf-ball at this brick stand and try to hit the ball on the rebound. The golf-ball came back at great speed and to hit it at all with the round stump was no easy task. To make my game interesting I would organise two sides consisting of well-known international names and would bat for Taylor, Gregory, Collins and so on, in turn. The door behind me was the wicket, and I devised a system of ways to get caught out " (and bowled, Sir Donald —were you, even then, never bowled ?) " and of boundaries."
When I read this I stared and gasped. I make no accusations, but this promising young batsman was merely plagiarising. Why, this was exactly how I served my apprenticeship in cricket I Well, not exactly. I admit some slight differences. There, certainly, were the tank and the brick base, though my, wicket was not of concrete but of asphalt. My ball was derived from tennis, not from golf. Young Bradman was evidently schooling himself for fast bowling, and I agree that to hit a Larwoodian golf-ball with a stump—to hit it at all, much more to hit it for four—was no mean feat in itself. On the other hand, my bat, being an old, discarded and warped walking-stick, was thinner than a stump, and I con- sider that my bowling methods were subtler. According as the tank was Barnes or_Bosanquet or Trumble or Howell, I varied the pace and pitch and made frequent changes of bowling (being, of course, captain of both sides). In my opinion, this required just as much skill as young Donald's high velocity stuff, and more variety of stroke-play. I remember that many of the deliveries of Bosankey (as he was affectionately known to me and many other Hillmen) were particularly tricky. I also adapted my batting with more finesse than my rival seems to have shown. When I was Trumper or Duff, I remembered my responsibilities as an opening batsman and played with a combination of exquisite grace and studied caution ; when I was J. J. Kelly or Cotter—known sloggers— I went for sixers, and sometimes had to recover them from the gardens of neighbours, who did not seem to appreciate my prowess. My best hit off Bosankey broke a window at a remarkable distance, and the match had to be abandoned pending a rather painful inquiry by the Board of Control.
The sole disadvantage of my oval was that the off-side boundary was only about three yards distant from the wicket, while the leg-side field consisted of the whole garden. It was therefore diffi- cult to score on the off—though I developed an ingenious system of doing so—and all my really pretty scoring strokes were to the on. I became particularly adept in a sort of scythe-like leg sweep which I have never seen in any other batsman. I am convinced that if Sir Donald had had my training in leg-play he would have made light of body-line bowling. The great advantage of this type of cricket is that one is simultaneously captain, batsman, bowler and umpire, and therefore must possess a profound knowledge of all branches of the game—except, perhaps, fielding, which, however, being done by rose-bushes and other well-placed flora, is practically infallible. Umpiring requires not only vigilance but the highest qualities of character. I was always strictly impartial, to the point of sternness, frequently gave myself out l.b.w., and never disputed my own decisions. All the more remarkable; therefore, is the circumstance that I won all my matches, which is more than Sir Donald can say.
And now I come, at last, to my moral reflection on these strange coincidences. Here are two young Australians, both enthusiastic and ambitious in cricket, both trained in almost identically the same way. One becomes world-famous, the Nonpareil. The other —well, if there is an Australian Wisden, you will not find his name there. Strange, is it not 7—and how unfair I Still, there are compensations. Sir Donald may have gone further than I did in the game, but I will never admit that he was a better all-round cricketer than I was in those great unsung Test Matches of yore.
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