With the millions of words written about Bradman, many repeated thousands of times, there has been surprisingly little research on his record on bad pitches. Especially since it was a criticism often thrown at him while he was playing and for some time afterwards. Not all wet pitches were bad of course. Sometimes they made batting easier, as with dew in India.
Irving Rosenwater, a professional statistician, wrote a pretty comprehensive biography back in 1978. He identified the following Bradman Test innings on rain-damaged wickets. Highest score of teammate in blue type.
1 v England, Brisbane 1928 (2nd innings) [Woodfull 30*, carried bat]
43 and 0 v West Indies, Sydney 1931 [Fairfax 54 & 60*]
13 v England, Lord's 1934 (2nd innings) [Woodfull 43 "notable defiance after Bradman lashed out wildly". Pitch was a slow turner.]
0 v England, Brisbane 1936 (2nd innings) [Chipperfield 26*]
0 v England, Sydney 1936 (1st innings) [O'Reilly 37* "taking advantage of some speculative overs of spin"]
A CW poster found another one. 8 v England, Nottingham, 1930 (1st innings) [Kippax 64* "fine innings on a drying wicket"]
This gives 65 runs at an average of 9.28. Sample size 7 innings out of 80, or 8.75%.
Bradman never denied his failings on bad pitches, merely saying he didn't think proper cricket should be played on them. One of the few to speak out in his defence on these surfaces was Verity, who used as evidence a match between Yorkshire and the Australians at Sheffield in 1938. The pitch was a slow turner throughout, similar to the second innings at Lord's in 1934. There was a large crowd and Verity noticed that Bradman, stung by previous criticism, was determined this time to cut out his cross-batted shots and stay in.
Yorkshire inserted the visitors who made 222. Hassett got 94 and Bradman 59. Next highest was McCabe's 13. Yorkshire replied with 205. Three of their esteemed wet-wicket batsmen, Sutcliffe, Hutton and Leyland, scored 44 between them, Sutcliffe retiring hurt with a damaged finger before resuming. When the Australians went in again they made 132, Bradman top-scoring with 42 while the next best was Badcock's 22. Set 150 to win, Yorkshire settled for a draw with 86-3 from 46 overs. Hutton 18, Sutcliffe 36*. Verity noted that in both Bradman's innings, virtually everything came off the middle of the bat.
