Sanz
Hall of Fame Member
Why does it matter if his 334 was his best innings or not ? The voting was whether or not 334 is better than Lax's 281 and IMO it was. You dont have to accuse people of voting in favor of Bradman just because he is Bradman. On the same note it can be said had Laxman not been an Indian you probably would have voted for Don's innings as well.silentstriker said:
The fact that Sir Don scored this inning is kind of goes against him, had Tendulkar/Lara made this score today, it might just be declared greatest ever.
1st session: 105 (only the third instance of a century before lunch on the first day of a Test. The next would be in 1976)
2nd session: 115
3rd session: 89
Reached 50: 49 minutes
Reached 100: 99 minutes
Reached 150: 174 minutes
Reached 200: 214 minutes (still the fastest double century in Test history ??)
Reached 288: 314 minutes
This score surpasses Englishman R.E. Foster's 287 , the previous highest score in Test cricket
Reached 300: 336 minutes
Not to forget the fact that Don was only 21 years old, Here is a quick read on the innings :-
http://www.334notout.com/bradman/don334.htm
Another Read :-
Bradman bats and bats and bats, Headingley, 1930
Don Bradman's 334 in the Leeds Test in 1930 was regarded then, and for many years afterwards, as almost a superhuman feat, both because of the number of runs he scored (nobody had previously reached 300 in a Test) and the speed with which he scored.
Since then, the score has been bettered several times, and people are not as awed by Bradman's rate of scoring. True, he may have reached 100 before lunch (after coming in first wicket down) and ended the day on 309 not out, but, given the faster over rates then, he did face many more balls than a batsman could hope to face today.
So what are the facts? The scoresheet shows that Bradman scored his 334 from 448 balls – a rate of 4.5 runs per six balls faced. In other words, he scored as fast as a one-day team would score if it made 224 from 50 overs.
This is certainly quick, especially against a highquality attack on the first day of a Test, but how quick? How does it compare, speed-wise, with the double centuries scored in the recent Tests against India?
It was faster – Rahul Dravid scored his 233 at Adelaide at 3.1 runs per six balls faced, Sachin Tendulkar his 241 at Sydney at 3.3 and Ricky Ponting his 257 at Melbourne at 3.4.
But Ponting's 242 at Adelaide, which he scored at 4.1 runs per six balls, compares favourably to Bradman's 334, and Matthew Hayden's 380 against Zimbabwe last October was faster. Hayden's scoring rate was 5.2.
An English journalist wrote of Bradman's 334: "It is almost impossible to describe his innings, because it was all of a piece. Any one period of it was just like any other. There was no crescendo and very certainly no diminuendo."
Yet a closer look at the scoresheet shows that Bradman played different bowlers differently and that, in particular, he went after Harold Larwood, the express-pace bowler who was to lead the bodyline attack in Australia two years later. From the 70 balls Larwood bowled to him, Bradman hit 14 fours and scored 84 runs – a rate of 7.2 per six balls.
Laurence Le Quesne noted in his book The Bodyline Controversy, "Slow bowlers expect to be attacked ... but for a fast bowler of great pace to be taken by the scruff of the neck and hit all over the field, as Larwood was by Bradman that summer, is the most violent rebuff possible – an experience that might shatter a man's morale, if it could not be avenged."
- Philip Derriman
