Gripping yarn reveals The Don's strokes of genius
by Philip Derriman. July 3 2003
It took an Englishman to discover why Don Bradman was so much
better than other batsmen.Philip Derriman reports.
If Tiger Woods had a grip, stance and backswing that were different
from everyone else's, the chances are that half the world's golfers
would be doing their best to copy him.
Don Bradman - Australia |
So
why haven't batsmen tried to copy Don Bradman? He had a grip,
stance and backlift that were unique and, statistically, his superiority
in his sport was greater than Woods's, yet few if any cricketers
have sought to model themselves on Bradman. Why has the great
man's example been ignored?
The question has inspired a new book, Bradman Revisited, written
by, of all people, an Englishman. It argues Bradman's batting
methods should be accepted as mainstream and orthodox and that
young batsmen around the world would do well to hold the bat with
his unusual grip, place it between their toes, lift it towards
gully and, finally, bring it around in a smooth, rotary motion
into the shot.
The book's author, Tony Shillinglaw, a coach and former Cheshire
player, has spent much of his cricketing life trying to discover
the key to Bradman's success. He decided early on that there had
to be one, that Bradman must have enjoyed some special advantage,
since, in his opinion, no amount of natural talent, practice and
mental toughness could have made Bradman so much better than everyone
else.
After considering the same matter, former England batsman Geoff
Boycott writes of Bradman in the book's foreword: "Fifty
years after the great batsman retired from batting and two years
after his death, we are no nearer to understanding what made him
so special. We know he had a different stance, an unusual pick-up,
dancing feet, lightning
reflexes and exceptional balance. His certainty of shot plus concentration
and mental toughness were second to none. Yet in 40 years of playing,
watching and commentating on cricket I have seen a number of great
batsmen who possessed many of these qualities. Yet all of them
were only 50 to 60 per cent as good as The Don. So was there something
else? Or was he just born special?"
It
is the something else that Shillinglaw believes he has identified;
the way Bradman held his bat, lifted it and prepared for each
stroke. Shillinglaw believes this gave Bradman an important advantage
in terms of balance and ensured he was always ideally positioned
to play his shot. In other words, it was what Bradman did before
a shot that set him apart, not the stroke itself.
For years Shillinglaw tried to persuade other coaches in England
that Bradman wasn't a one-off and that his technique deserved
serious consideration, but they were not willing to listen. Today,
Shillinglaw is dismayed to find a national junior coaching program
in England developed by the MCC still pushes the old pendulum
idea that the bat should be lifted back towards the stumps and
swung forward in roughly the same plane.
"Up and down the country youngsters are being taught to take
their bats straight back," he writes. "The indications
are they are being given a handicap from the very beginning."
But can anyone be sure the batting method which worked for Bradman,
including, in particular, the rotary motion of his bat as he lifted
it and swung into a stroke, would work for others?
Shillinglaw convinced himself they would when he tried batting
Bradman-style in the nets near the end of his own career.
He writes: "Batting was not just different. With practice
it suddenly became a thrilling new experience. As long as the
speed of the bowling on the indoor surface was within my capacity,
the sight of the ball did, in Bradman's words, trigger a corresponding
reaction. Never before in my cricketing experience had I timed
the ball so consistently well, nor hit it so fast all around the
wicket and with so little mental and physical effort.
"When Bradman's aggressive intent and determination is considered,
together with the additional freedom and scope of his method,
it becomes possible to come to terms with his remarkable record."
Shillinglaw believes Bradman had all the other qualities which
the other greats possessed. Talent, confidence, competitiveness
and so on, plus a bonus in the way he developed his ball skills
as a boy by endlessly hitting a golf ball against a brick tank
stand with a cricket stump. "My view is that in his boyhood
game Don Bradman stumbled upon a unique practical formula for
success," he writes.
Others agree with him, including Cricket NSW's high performance
manager, Alan Campbell. "I think the high-repetition skill
development that Bradman used at an early age was very significant
in his later ability to play," Campbell says.
Already, players in NSW's high-performance program, aged from
17 up, test their hand-eye co-ordination by standing a metre away
from a wall and seeing how many times in a minute they can hit
a table tennis ball against the wall with a table tennis bat.
Campbell agrees Bradman's boyhood game was far more challenging,
and he would like to replicate it. But there isn't a brick tank
stand at the SCG, yet.
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