‘DUCK’, a word that no batter wants to get it and every bowler’s dream. Many legendary players, including Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting have been dismissed for a duck. However, but none got as much attention as the one we are talking about here. It has happened even to the greatest of the cricket. But there is one duck that everyone still talks about it, and it hurt as much as losing the Cricket World Cup.
Every Cricket fan knows that Test is purest form of cricket and Don Bradman is still one of the finest ever to hold a cricket bat, and the greatest phenomenon this beautiful game has ever experienced. In 52 matches, he scored 6996 runs with the batting average of 99.94. The number speaks the greatness of this legend.
This batting average record is still unbroken and is a dream of every test batter to surpass. Not only batting average, his Most runs in a series by a captain (810) is also unbroken. He was more than a player. Just imagine how many records a person can hold with batting average of 99.94 that too after playing 80 Innings?
Kennington Oval, London
The Oval, London, has seen many historical innings of greatest test players like Len Hutton – 364 vs Australia (1938), Hashim Amla – 311 vs England (2012), Viv Richards – 291 vs England (1976), Sunil Gavaskar – 221 vs England (1979), Don Bradman – 244 vs England (1934) and many more. But that one inning of Don Bradman that everyone talks about.
He used to practice his batting by hitting a golf ball against a water tank with a stump. When he made his test debut in 1928, everyone knew that cricket world has got something special. With his fast reflexes, sharp cricketing mind and flawless technique, he gave a message to the world and carried Australian Cricket from a great depression and World War II to a golden era of dominance, pride, and national unity.
Match Summary:
Don Bradman batting average was 99.94 and it was his carrier’s last Ashes series in 1948. England won the toss, and they elected to bat first. England really had a bad start of 52 all out in 42.1 overs. With England all our, Australia’s came in with strong openers, Sid Barnes and Arthur Morris. Both made a great partnership of 117 runs. England really needed someone to break this partnership and then Eric Hollies steps in with the wicket of Sid Barnes. Now it was time for Bradman, everyone was excited during the match just because of him. Reason? He just needed 4 runs to complete the average of 100 on his last match. Eric Hollies showed his magic and got Bradman out for a duck! He played only 2 balls and got bowled by Eric Hollies.
Everyone was in a big shock, no one would have expected this ending of such a great player. He narrowly missed to create a history with 100 batting average. However, Arthur Morris played a great inning of 196 runs and missed the chance of double century. The Australia got all with a strong score of 389 which England couldn’t achieve and got all out in juts 188 in their 2nd inning. This was the first time Australia won the game with disappointing ending.
Sir Donald Brandman have barely missed to achieve 100 batting average in his 52nd inning, but no one is even close to 99.94 number even in today’s date and this is the reason when cricket speaks of greatness, the conversation starts with Don Bradman.
