It was sad to see a whole nation prostrate itself in adulation of a man who could hit a round piece of leather with a piece of wood.
Sure, he hit it very well. Better than anyone else, no doubt. But really, is this good cause for using phrases like “”the greatest Australian”, for stopping the national Parliament, for devoting more than half the night’s television news bulletins, for wrapping every newspaper in the country with pages and pages of tributes and so on?
And in all these hectares of words, there were precious few from the man himself. He did not contribute much to the great debates, at least publicly.
The adulation is puzzling. It is more than 50 years since he played a test match. That was pre-television, so there is not much vision of his performance. Sure, Bradman lifted the spirits of a few people during the Depression with his sporting prowess. Circuses and dance halls did the same thing.
Did he significantly improve the standard of living or quality of life of Australians through scientific discovery like: Florey, Braggs, Macfarlane Burnet, Eccles, Comforth or Doherty. Did he create and inspire like Lawson, Paterson, Gibbs, Carey, White, Roberts, Heysen or Whiteley. Did he chronicle like Bean? What of our film-makers? Did he explore like Sturt, Forrest, Stuart, Hume and Hovell?
Did he work for a national vision like Parkes or Barton? Did he invent and dare like Hargraves, Hinkler and Ross and Charles Kingsford-Smith? Did he create wealth for the people from mining or industry? Did he inspire by the creation of buildings? Or did he help the needy like Chisholm or Flynn?
No; he hit a piece of leather with a piece of stick. And he generally kept silent about it.
He said little about South Africa’s apartheid. The cricket board he chaired only acted to stop South Africa touring in the 1970s because protesters proved (via rubgy demonstrations) that it would have been physically impossible, not because the board wanted to make a statement about racism in sport.
He was one of the first sports player to earn sums out of proportion of the general workforce. So he was not the self-sacrificing altruist who put country first, as Monday’s tributes had it. And his achievements were done in comparative comfort. It is fine that he earned the money. He deserved as the most skilled person in the world to hit the round piece of leather with a piece of wood. But that skill should not make him a national saint.
He was not even a team player, because cricket is not a team game – especially for batsmen. They make runs individually, hence cricket’s mania for personal statistics. There is no passing to a teammate to score in cricket.
After matches, he was not a gregarious team man. He also displayed attributes of sectarianism.
Sure, he did not boast or engage in off or on-field antics, but that is no different from a huge number of other full-time sports people.
The best thing about Bradman was that he was not as stupid and gullible as his adulators. He knew he was not perfect, a saint or the greatest Australian. He knew he was just a man who could hit a leather ball with a piece of wood very well, and not much more.