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One hundred years after his birth, Sir Donald Bradman remains narrowly defined as an unremarkable man with a more than remarkable record.
His career Test batting average of 99.94 stands without peer in the pantheon of cricket’s many statistics, despite a flurry of advancements in the game that have made batting a rather less inexact science than it was 60 years ago.
Australia’s foremost cricket writer Gideon Haigh defines Bradman’s tale in terms of success, rather than sport.
“He performed a particular task more effectively than anyone before or since; more effectively, perhaps, than any other Australian has performed theirs,” Haigh wrote in the August edition of The Monthly.
“The task was, to be sure, narrow and highly specialised; yet Bradman sustained a gargantuan superiority over a period of 20 years.”
There have been countless assessments made of Bradman and books written about him, but few if any have been able to find a fresh perspective to rival that instantly given by a cursory glance at his set of numbers.
There is, according to Haigh, a popular tendency to look only mildly into the Bradman story, as much out of reverence as anything else.
“Still the most compelling aspect of the legend is The Average. One hundred is not the maximum possible arithmetic mean score in cricket, but 99.94, with its tincture of human fallibility … could not have been more exquisitely contrived,” he wrote.
“To a generation addicted to measurement and saturated in numbers, The Average is monolithic, unassailable, totemic.
“Yet by The Average, it would seem, are we largely to know him. There is a certain comfort in calling Bradman great and leaving it at that.”
In recent times a few scholars have attempted to delve deeper and more thoroughly into Bradman’s life and career, most notably Brett Hutchins’ 2002 study Bradman: Challenging The Myth.
While reverent acknowledgement of Bradman’s place in Australian and cricket history will never slacken, it is perhaps time for fresh appraisals of the man and his career.
Haigh likened Bradman to Anzac Day, which after decades of lower profile observances has recently enjoyed unprecedented levels of interest and meaning among younger generations.
“With the freedom to review Bradman’s life backwards, we regularly overlook that he lived his life forwards, that deeds seemingly inevitable were achievements of flesh, blood and spirit,” Haigh wrote.
“While Bradman lived, there remained a sense of wonder that such a small, frail, soft-spoken and self-contained man could cast such a long shadow.
“Now, as the Australia of which Bradman was part recedes into antiquity, he is at risk of becoming a mere statistical outlier.
“Succeeding generations have found fresh and deeper meanings in Anzac Day; Donald Bradman awaits rediscovery.”
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