Talking on Rahul Dravid joining the 10000 club, Tony Greig saysthat any club that does not include "Bradman's name" is nothing special. He believes that this club and Rahul Dravid's landmark is just over hyped by the media. His words: "There is no doubt in my mind that any club that does not include the undisputed king of them all, Don Bradman, really is not the sort of club you should be talking about."

I find that a little strange. Don was a great batsman, but he practically could not have done everything. Whatever he did can not be held forever as the only measure of greatness.

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Ha, 10,000 runs at test level nothing, just another biased view from a cricket analyzer, nothing out of the ordinary these days.

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Bradman played in a time where there was no helmets and also bowlers would be fast at 125km/h. Now we have helmets but bowlers clock up to 161km/h at fastest. yes bradman was good but he never got to face the bowlers of today and if he did lee would kill him, murali would rip him, vaas mcgrath and co would nick him up, warne would rip him and he would have no idea as they wouldnt have swung or spun it like they do today. Also i doubt he would cut it now with a strike rate of what i heard was below 35. he would at most face 100 balls in todays cricket. with the advances in bowling such as reverse swing cutters and spinners with their perfect flipper, unpickable wrong un, doosra's, teesra's and all these other deliveries perfectly executed by the likes of warne mcgrath murali and co.

Just a couple of corrections. There were plenty of good bowlers in those days too, some of them very fast. Have you ever heard of Harold Larwood, Bill Voce, Gubby Allen, Learie Constantine? Have you heard of Bodyline? Bowlers of that pace on uncovered wickets would be a far more difficult proposition than facing Lee on one of today's belters. There were decent spinners too- Hedley Verity, a master of the wet or "sticky" wicket, Bill O'Reilly, a master of the googly (they had it back then too) and Clarrie Grimmett, who invented the flipper. While he never faced the last two in international cricket, he did in State cricket, and he excelled there too. Plus, they had no helmets and little other protective gear, and long sea voyages which took a real toll on the body.

Also, I don't know where you heard Bradman's SR was 35, but a comprehensive study by statistician Charles Davis in a recent Wisden Australia calculated his SR at 60- faster than Ponting and Tendulkar, and as fast as Lara and Botham.

Finally, some of Bradman's contemporaries such as McCabe, Ponsford, Hobbs, Hammond, Headley, Sutcliffe and Hutton are regarded by knowledgeable historians as being among some of the greatest batsmen ever. And Bradman outshone them all, by some margin.

Well, the point here is that, even though Bradman was a great batsman and perhaps the best, its unfair to say that anything that Bradman did not achieve is not noteworthy. I find Tony's statement foolish. No batsman, however great, can achieve everything. And he lived in an entirely different era. Its very unfair to compare his achievement with the achievements of todays' batsmen.

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Well said Aurelius, spot on.

Bradman is perhaps the greatest and there is very little to argue about it. In any case I have never been in favour of comparing players of different eras for the simple reason that cricket has changed so much over time that it is a worthless exercise. But the following matters should be considered:

1. Bradman played in an era where there was no computer analysis on opposing players.
2. In his autobiography, Bradman has clearly mentioned his dis-taste for negative bowling on leg stump (not
Bodyline) which restricts scoring. You had a situation where Bradman would be batting on 200 and the
bowlers would still bowl to an attacking field of three slips and a gully!
3. How many test matches did Bradman play in a year? If he had played as many matches as the current
bunch of players, would Bradman have been able to sustain this high rate of scoring?
4. The quality of fielding has improved a lot which would have restricted Bradman's scoring and also perhaps
catches that were not attempted in his days are caught more often than not these days.

Interesting points you raised. I don't know how point no. 1 would affect his playing today. As for point 2, it occurs to me that he wouldn't have been restricted all that much by defensive fields, as he was one of those batsmen who scored heavily more through placement and timing than brute force and the aireal route. As for point 3, it's true that his workload was relatively light in terms of match-days, but according to Roy Morgan's "An Encyclopdia of World Cricke," due to the long sea and train voyages which were necessary in the 30s, players back then had less "rest days" than they do today! Regarding point 3, I think that goes back to his placement ability- IMO, even though the fielding is better today I wouldn't expect it to make that much difference. And he hardly ever hit the ball in the air, so I don't think there'd be that much more catching opportunities either.

Which leaves me with a funny story I heard- Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne were invited to the Don's house for dinner. During the course of the evning, Tendulkar asked him what he thought he'd average if he played today. "About 70."
"Why only 70?"
"Because I'm 90, and 70 isn't bad for a 90-year-old man."

I'll chip now for starters for a man who scored 300 in a day I would be extremely doubtful Bradman would have ended up with a strike rate much below 75.
And although there have been some great technological breakthroughs with batting, spinning, feilding, fitness, stamina, injury and batting protection.

Raw bowling pace is either something you have got or have not got. Akhtar, Ambrose, Lee, Akram, Marshall, Marlinga, Tait, Donald, Nintini, Gough and Bond were all spotted at a young age somewhere before they experienced technological advanced coaching. Due to the fact they showed they had "raw pace"

32 years ago Jeff Thomson was bowling at only a tick under Shaohb Akhtars quickest ball, having seen footage of the bodyline ashes series I would be surprised if Harold Larwood was not bowling for the most part in the high 140 kph's and his quicker balls were probably in the 150's. And that was on uncovered pitches that were prepared without all the modern advantages. I doubt Bert Odfeild (Fractured Skull) would have thought Larwood was bowling 125 kph, and I doubt the nicks would have been flying off the bat and carrying chest high to the keeper and behind the stump feilders as well.

Bradman without thinking much about it hit a golf ball against a tank stand with a cricket stump while he was young hoping to improve his hand eye coordination. It worked, but I dont know if we ever see the same dedication again from the Nintendo and Playstation generation. We just have a lot more things to do available to us now.

He also never had the opportunity to play on roped in arenas.

I think you are selling a lot of our great cricketers very short in your post.

Though I never say that bradman wasnt the best cricketer the world has ever seen. I do believe that the quality of cricket in that era was a lot less than today. Though I do think that the quality of cricket has been on the decrease since the 80's. The 70's was the best cricketing era for me by far.

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