If Bradman played in today's era?

[Son Of Coco]

had he made his debut post 2001, with a helmet and field restrictions on leg side, and shorter boundaries and lighter bats, and on covered wickets, bradman would still be batting in his first innings

 

[GotSpin]

for every genius discovered.. a 1000 go un-noticed..

mj was afine bball player and probably one of the 1 in thousand discovered.. however remember his dad liked baseball if he had gone into baseball as his dad wanted him to.. bball (nba) would be none the wiser... and when his dad passed he did play a little baseball.. maybe his age held him back slightly but he didnt blow the roof off the sport..

bradman played tennis and by all accounts was pretty good.. if he had continued with tennis.. whether he would have been a great tennis player we will never know.. im sure he would have been pretty good.. but cricket would have been none the wiser..

there is probably 1000s of bradmans in india and pakistan.. playing cricket onn the street with a stick.. just as bradman did aginst the water drum and a golf ball.. but many circumstances are required to allign themselves for that opportunity to become a reality..

these probably a bunch of us reading this now.. who love cricket and believe they a wicket or century away from playing cricket for there country.. when in fact if they had put on a pair of ice skates they good be winning gold for their country in the winter olympics....

I disagree. It takes an incredibly special person to do what Bradman and those other athletes did in there respective sports. By all accounts, Bradman was also very good at Golf and Tennis, as well as cricket obviously

 

[slugger]

I disagree. It takes an incredibly special person to do what Bradman and those other athletes did in there respective sports . By all accounts, Bradman was also very good at Golf and Tennis, as well as cricket obviously

isnt that kinda what i was saying .. this happens.. pele for soccer ali for boxing.

 

[Flem274*]

My guess is if Bradman played today we'd see a slightly different player. For a start in ODIs he'd play some lofted shots over the top, some would work, some wouldn't. In Australia or anywhere with relatively easy batting pitches he'd dominate more than in other areas.

Stuff it, I'll shorten the post and say he'd still be as good, give or take a few runs, if there were any technical deficiencies logic says he would have dealt with them like most other players do. He'd play slightly differently because of the style of game played today as well but he easily, easily has the ability to adapt.

His battles vs Murali would have been exciting tstl.

Another Bradman will come, records and standards are there to be broken and raised. Suspect whoever is lucky enough to get the next will dominate world cricket.

 

[slugger]

with the intoduction of technology i suspect another badman 99 avg.. is not going to happen again.. i suspect also not many test will make it to the 5th day.. if hot spot was udsed which i believe they are not .. the game could change over night.. ive mentioned this before.. its very hard to determin if bradman got a number of lucky breaks.. because the whole asppect of replys obvouisly didnt exist.. if you just use the run out tech.. as an example run outs that have been given since its introduction of said tech.. would not have been given before hand.. so on the other hand the fielding at those times would have been less inclined to take a shy at the stumps unless the player looked like not making it to the crease by a long shot.. bradman never had to deal with any of that type of pressure of analysing his game.. this can and is likely to carry some weight..

 

[Richard]

My guess is if Bradman played today we'd see a slightly different player. For a start in ODIs he'd play some lofted shots over the top, some would work, some wouldn't.

He'd be easily good enough to play one way in ODIs and completely differently in Tests, for my money.

 

[Richard]

And then you realise... that post wasn't actually in jest!

 

[Son Of Coco]

And then you realise... that post wasn't actually in jest!

It's my first contender for the week

 

[Debris]

This is the sort of question that it is impossible to answer. Cricket has become a very different game than it was. Really hard to compare players of different eras.

 

[Richard]

For all that's changed, much has remained the same.

There is, to me, no logical reasons whatsoever why Bradman would not remain far, far ahead of any other batsman in any other time, at least post-1900. And equally, I see fairly strong evidence that in very recent times he'd do even better than he did in his own.

 

[PhoenixFire]

If you look at the stats, no other sportsman has dominated a mainstream sport the way Bradman has, he was the very best out of any sportsman there ever has been IMO.

 

[Isura]

Kind of off topic, but does anyone know where to get Bradman film footage? I have a picture in my mind of how him batting would look. Something of a mix of Brendan McCullum and Sachin.

 

[Athlai]

I reckon Parkinson's recent interview really emphasises the point that the standard of cricket has raised since Bradman's time, the fitness levels have went up by so much that the game has changed completely. The change can be creditted to two men, WG Grace and Bradman, they are what created the modern game, pioneers, yet that does not stand to reason that if a time machine were created they would dominate it. They would be very good players but in this day and age, sport is your profession you train every day of the week, and the skill level is always rising.

Though if you were to feel if Bradman was born in this age of cricketers with all the skill and talent he possessed then, perhaps he would still dominate over todays higher standards, yet that fact alone is debatable as he created those standards and everyone else has emulated them. There may never be another Bradman and even though he may not be the best if he played today, he is the greatest batsman ever to play the game because of what he did then, in his own time, whatever has happened since is inconsequential, without him batting would never be the same as it is today.

 

[SJS]

He would have been averaged around 150.

Hi Funnygirl

Here is the dampener for all Bradman 'devotees'

The world batting averages haven't changed much since Bradman's era. If anything they are marginally lower. The lowest being during Richard's era at 30.21 as compared to 31.856 during Bradman's times. Thus Bradman's average during the times of these other greats - extrapolated on the basis of the world averages and Bradman's 'multiplier' works out as -

• Hammond's Era : 97.93
• Richard's Era : 94.97
• Gavaskar's Era : 95.50
• Lara's Era : 95.85

He played in the best era of them all. So the only chance Bradman had for keeping his three figure average intact was if he hadn't played that last test

.... or maybe he should have toured South Africa in 1935-36 and played those five test matches

Bradman really had it easy dodn't he, everyone in the world was scoring more runs - right?

Or do you think it is because all the world's truly great batsmen were his contemporaries?

Lets start fighting over that

 

[SJS]

Edit?

Thanks my dear.

Oh shucks - its too late.

 

[Richard]

Kind of off topic, but does anyone know where to get Bradman film footage? I have a picture in my mind of how him batting would look. Something of a mix of Brendan McCullum and Sachin.

Quite a bit of stuff up online.

 

[Richard]

I reckon Parkinson's recent interview really emphasises the point that the standard of cricket has raised since Bradman's time, the fitness levels have went up by so much that the game has changed completely. The change can be creditted to two men, WG Grace and Bradman, they are what created the modern game, pioneers, yet that does not stand to reason that if a time machine were created they would dominate it. They would be very good players but in this day and age, sport is your profession you train every day of the week, and the skill level is always rising.

Though if you were to feel if Bradman was born in this age of cricketers with all the skill and talent he possessed then, perhaps he would still dominate over todays higher standards, yet that fact alone is debatable as he created those standards and everyone else has emulated them. There may never be another Bradman and even though he may not be the best if he played today, he is the greatest batsman ever to play the game because of what he did then, in his own time, whatever has happened since is inconsequential, without him batting would never be the same as it is today.

The things that made Bradman special have yet to be emulated.

Yes, Bradman was ahead of his time in some ways, but that wasn't the main reason for him being so good.

 

[GotSpin]

Quite a bit of stuff up online.

It's obviously been said before but wow does he hit that ball cleanly

 

[Michaelf7777777]

If you look at the stats, no other sportsman has dominated a mainstream sport the way Bradman has, he was the very best out of any sportsman there ever has been IMO.

The Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is the only sportsperson to match Bradman in my opinion.

 

[SJS]

A quick look at Grace's stats.....continued

So how did WG Grace fare against his contemporaries in the English first class seasons over the 20 year period of 1868-1887

• WG averaged 45.17 during this period.
• The average of all others who played in the first class game in those years put together is 16.00.
• This gives WG a multiplier of 2.82 over his contemporaries in these two decades.
• The average in the English season in the 21st centuries (2000-2007) has been 31.55
• Thus if there was someone who dominated English first class cricket today as WG did for those 20, he would have had to average 89.06 !!

An average of 89.06 for a period of 20 years !!

Not too different from Bradman's career first class average of 95.14 .