Bradman was an admirer of Murali

[Beny]

http://aus.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/C...07DEC2004.html

Muttiah Muralitharan is internally programmed to be suspicious of former Australian cricketers (and politicians for that matter), many of whom have doubted the legality of his action over the years, but the greatest of them all, the late Sir Donald Bradman, appears to have been one of his fondest admirers.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Beny

http://aus.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/C...07DEC2004.html

Hmm.. facinating.

Originally Posted by Bradman on Murali

"Murali, for me, shows perhaps the highest discipline of any spin bowler since the war. He holds all the guile of the trade, but something else too. His slight stature masked a prodigious talent, and what a boon he has been for cricket's development on the subcontinent."

"His is the stuff of our greatest slow bowlers, and for me is one, like O'Reilly, Warne or Trumble; who are game-breakers. They detect and then imagine the batsman's weakness, perhaps in an over or two. What a weapon for any captain: to have the discipline to contain and bamboozle."

High praise indeed.. and matched by quite scathing condemnation of those who persecuted him:

Originally Posted by Bradman on Hair

Bradman went on to object to Murali being no-balled during the Boxing Day Test of 1995: "It is with this in mind, and with the game's need to engage as a world sport, that I found umpire Darrell Hair's calling of Murali so distasteful. It was technically impossible of umpire Hair to call Murali from the bowler's end. Why was his eye not on the foot-fall and crease?

"I believe Hair's action - in one over - took the development of world cricket back by ten years. For me, this was the worst example of umpiring that I have witnessed, and against everything the game stands for. Clearly Murali does not throw the ball. No effort in that direction is made or implied by him. His every effort is to direct the ball unto the batsman. Murali wants to bamboozle, to trick through flight and change of pace.

Quite. If only Bradman's fellow countrymen were all as appreciative.

[Zainub]

I'm very pleased to know that, and makes me regret even more that I never saw Bradman play, from all that I have heard about him he seems to me one of the politest ever Australian sportsman I have known. I wonder how different world cricket would have been had he played in the last couple of decades or so.

[Maranello]

Isn't that a contradiction in terms... polite Australian sportsman? Do such beings exist?

[Zainub]

I used the word polite in a relative sense. If you're comparing a section of the French food throwing/whinning sportsmen/managers to the section of Aussies ones who fire in the odd racist remark coupled with a few doses of the McGrathesue finger pointing etc ...Australia don't look that bad. Better than France anyway.

ps: NO offence intented to either the French or Australians public at large here, at all times I'm reffering to a small minority

[Beny]

polite Australian sportsman? Do such beings exist?

We're always very polite when we tell you why we're better than you.

Just stay away from the top end- The Rednecks of Australia.

[Maranello]

Any cricketers, past or present, who hail from the Redneck territory?

[Beny]

Hayden (nice guy though and not racsist at all)
Symo (well he can hardly be racsist can he?)

Probebly more, understand though that i'm generalising here.

[vvvrulz]

I'm pretty sure Hayden took the mickey out of Ganguly last year when India toured, mocking the excited indian chattering habits.

[Beny]

Is that anyworse than some of the sheep jokes New Zealanders get?