From: urajan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Uday Rajan)
Subject: Bradman's unpopularity ....
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 18:16:51 GMT

In article <l9quhkINNj7e@aludra.usc.edu> moghal@aludra.usc.edu (Nadeem Moghal) writes (about Don Bradman) :
>
>It would be interesting to try and figure out what must be the reason
>for his seeming unpopularity amongst those whose opinions matter. 
>

Here's what I remember from having read Jack Fingleton's "And Brightly Fades
the Don" and some book by Keith Miller, both several years ago.

On the 1948 tour of Aus to Eng, a couple of prominent members of the side
(Hassett - vice-captain - and Miller included) were unhappy with the Don's
insistence on making every effort to win every game at the cost of losing 
some of the enjoyment of the game. These players felt lucky to have 
survived the war, and treated the game as a game (and felt that the "peace
and goodwill mission" of the tour was as important); the Don, having survived 
Bodyline, treated it as a war (he was often described as "cold-hearted"
throughout his career).  A couple of instances - 
- in the tour match with Lancashire, Jack Ikin had reached the 90s when the
Don called for the new ball. Miller refused to bowl; Lindwall was given the 
ball and promptly bowled Ikin for 98 or 99.
- in the match against Essex, when Aus scored 721 in a day, Miller was 
out first bowl (I think stumped or bowled); the story is that he played
casually since he didn't see the point of the whole thing.

A side-effect of this dissatisfaction with Bradman was that, towards the 
end of the 1953 tour, when Hassett was captain, and Bill Johnston, a genuine
no. 11, had scored some 100+ runs for once out, Hassett often declared the 
Aussie innings (in the tour matches, not the Tests!) after 9 wickets had
fallen, to protect Johnston's tour average. This was to spite the Don; I 
think to this day Bradman and Johnston are the only two Aussies to average
over 100 in first-class games on an English tour.

One pre-war gripe I do remember is that Clarrie Grimmett (who, with 216
wickets in 36 Tests, had an impressive strike rate) blamed Bradman for
his being dropped from the Test team for the series against England in 
either 1936-37 or 1938. Grimmett was old (40+?) but he came into the Test
game late, and had just had a very successful tour of South Africa (when
Bradman didn't go). I don't remember the source of the dispute between the
two.

Much of this is from memory, so the facts may be wrong. However, Hassett 
and Miller were unhappy with Bradman's captaincy, and Fingleton's book does
mention some of the discords.

Come to think of it, Fingleton himself was no great fan of Bradman. I remember
that some place he has written that Bradman was a "rabbit" on anything 
except a perfect batting wicket. In one of the Tests against England in 
1936-37, Fingleton apparently held out for over two hours and 30 odd runs
on a rain-affected wicket, but Bradman came and went without a murmur. Also,
some people suspected that Bradman "faked" injuries to avoid batting on
bad wickets - I think this was during a South African tour of Aus in the 
early '30s. Finally, in the Bodyline series (when Bradman had the lowest
series average of his life - 56.xx!, still way above any other Aus batsman) 
some of the other batsmen were critical of his methods - backing away toward
square leg to cut the ball over the sparesly populated slip region and avoid
the "leg slip cordon". Apparently they felt that this demonstrated a lack
of confidence and lowered the morale of the team when they saw their best
batsman behaving in this manner. Bradman in his book "All About Cricket"
defends his methods as the only sensible ones to employ. Anyway, the gripers
were far more pleased with McCabe's 187* in the first Test, when he stood
up to the bowling and caned it. He was, however, unable to repeat that in
the series.

Well, this article grew to three times the intended length while I was 
typing - apologies for that. I hope it provides a glimmer about some of the
unhappiness with Bradman - I suspect that much of it stemmed out of envy 
about his greatness on the field. 
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