When England visit the MCG on Boxing Day, they will be unable to avoid taking in the towering statue of Don Bradman that welcomes visitors to the famous ground.
As much as Sir Don remains the greatest icon of Australian sport, he looms large too in the memory of English cricket.
Headingley, 1930. On the back of scoring 254 at Lord’s, an innings which had helped the tourists to level the series, big things were expected of the 21-year-old, who was starting to look just as promising as the Baggy Green’s other young batsman, Archie Jackson.
The traditional story of Bradman is that like much of his generation, World War II disrupted his career at its peak.
However, arguably his finest hour, and certainly his most frightening against England, came up in Leeds, where he would reach a triple-century by close of play on Day One. He is still the first batsman in Test history to achieve such a feat, with 200 of his runs being scored in just 214 minutes.
His final score of 334 remains the highest individual score in an Ashes Test.
Brought to the crease with Jackson out for just two, this was only his fifth Test match. Having been dropped immediately after his first, he batted with all the confidence of the established leader he was to become following the Aussies’ series win. By tea, he had smashed 30 boundaries.
England had paid little attention to him in the build-up. Insofar as they thought about him at all, it was with the conviction that he would be thwarted by the damp wickets of a Yorkshire summer.
It was Maurice Tate who eventually took his wicket after two days of exasperation and wonder in equal measure.
The irony, of course, is that Bradman was always convinced his innings at Lord’s was better than the triple-ton. Yet, it was at Headingley that he revealed his commitment to entertaining cricket, a big-hitter who somehow still managed not to take too many chances, always more partial to a four than a six. Four years later, he would add another 304 at the same ground, quite obviously his favourite venue on any tour of England.
By the middle of the decade, when there were some doubts over his captaincy, it wasn’t simply down to his strained relationship with some of his team-mates. Bradman’s start to his international career had been so impressive that it was feared he wouldn’t be able to keep his form up and that the added strain of leading the side would be too much. The latter may have been true to some extent, as the captaincy was a personal burden to a man who didn’t welcome the added attention.
England would continue to battle with him in throughout the 1930s and 40s, and they faced him for the final time in August 1948. That last Test at the Oval brought some unfortunate history of its own, as he needed just four to achieve a career average of 100 but was out for a duck off the bowling of Eric Hollies.
Just like the rest of international cricket, England could do little but marvel at Bradman’s brilliance, starting with that rip-roaring innings at Headingley. For, as the famous headline went, Bradman bats and bats and bats.
