Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Raise Your Bat to the Don...



For the next week or so, I’m going to focus on legendary folk who have achieved sporting immortality. Many sporting legends have been worthy enough to be set in stone, and many of us mortals have paid our utmost homage in one of the finest ways imaginable - by Standing By Your Sporting statue.

Who better to start with than Sir Donald Bradman, the legendary Australian cricketer, who, quite simply, is the finest batsmen that the world has ever seen, and is likely to be the finest batsmen that the world has seen for a considerable amount of time yet.

Sir Donald we salute you, as does my friend Tim. This fine bronze statue of the Don is located at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which, funnily enough, can be found in Melbourne, Australia. And what a great antipodean pose it is by Tim, carrying his hat in his left hand with bat raised in salute in his right.

One statistical comparison between these two cricketers should be noted: Donald Bradman’s career average in test match cricket was an astonishing 99.94 runs per innings. Tim’s batting average in all forms of cricket was around 2.50 runs, and I’m probably being a little generous there ;-)

11 comments:

Neighbour of Teh Hoors! said...

Just found your site. Love it! :D

swisslet said...

2.50??

True, I wasn't the greatest batsman in the world (and one particular first ball 0, lbw with absolutely no foot movement sticks in my mind)

BUT

To be fair, I did learn a bit of stickability, and as you well bloody know, we saved a couple of matches with some marvellous rearguard actions - it would have been more but for a ridiculous dismissal you managed in the last over of a game in Cheltenham.

And I once hit a perfect six over the bowler's head... have I never mentioned that before?

Hats off to the Don though.

ST

(and good call on Desmond Dekker mate.... good call... currently listening to "you can get it if you really want it")

Statue John said...

I've said this elsewhere, but you should feel privileged to have your cricketing prowess *cough* discusssed in the same sentence as Sir Don! Those were some fine rearguards though, 14 years later and they still stick in the mind.

I wonder if Desmond Dekker has a statue somewhere?

John McClure said...

I note that your footwork is a little sloppy even for the statue imitation - Sir Don is clearly in the process of getting a big stride in, whereas you have remained a tad flat-footed to say the least.

swisslet said...

you try facing fast bowling in sandals (even if they are of the "combat sandals" variety). It takes a better batsman than me to feel fully confident taking a big confident step forwards wearing those, when you are feeling just a touch nervous about the fast-inswinging yorker.....

Maybe the Don could have pulled it off...

Anonymous said...

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John McClure said...

Online for a month and already the corporate statue sponsors have sniffed him out.

Statue John said...

Stand By Your Statue abhors any kind of corporate sponsorship.

That said, next time i'm in Balitimore i look forward to Standing by the many Statues in your warehouse.

Poll Star said...

What an excellent idea for this week's theme, bound to be a winner! Perhaps unwise to prompt Sozz to yet again tell us about the six he hit. Once. A long time ago.

swisslet said...

1991.

Halcyon days.

John McClure said...

What happened?
Did he steal a crafty single as the ball trickled past the keeper and hit an abandoned helmet?