My very first memories of cricket, like most of us, was talking to Dad. I was knee-high and can barely remember him telling me about the boy from Bowral. I also remember how upset I was that the Don wasn’t just allowed to stay in to get the four runs required. Why couldn’t he just bat again, I wailed. Because he was out, came the flat reply. Why didn’t England just let him score four runs then get him out? They would never do that. Well, why didn’t he just play the next game, Dad? Because he was old and there were years between Tests.
Then he said something that shattered my fragile, pre-school ideology. “It didn’t matter. It’s just a number”. Just a number?! How could he say that?!?! Damn pragmatic fathers and their irritating logic to their overreactive, melodramatic, bemused children. Next, he will probably tell me Santa isn’t real.
(This was a reccurring conversation with my father about milestones. I was outraged that David Boon was left stranded on 44 not out when Australia reached 128 at the MCG in 1991. Most recently, his quiet distaste at my over-the-top jubilation in his loungeroom that Joe Burns reached 51 chasing 87 in Adelaide in 2020. After the Burns innings and my overdramatic antics, he sighed, looked balefully and muttered, “I thought you would have grown out of this by now.”)
A decade and a half later I was at liquefied trivia night, making sure I kept my fluids up. The team was three guys, three girls. The question was who had the highest first-class score in cricket. The guys went through 70 years of innings and tried to sort in order the top 10 list. The girls, with champagne flutes in hand looked at each other briefly before one asked, “Is it Don Bradman?” There was stunned silence and incredulous looks from the male contingent as we spat our beers out. She may as well have said Dame Edna. One guy bravely asked, “Why did you guess him?” and the reply came, “He’s the only cricket player we know.” (Shane Warne??? Hello???) In fairness to the ladies, the trivia host gave the answer as Matt Hayden. It was a night of inebriated incredulity.
A couple of years ago my own flesh and blood, who could represent Australia in talking, asked me about Don Bradman. It was the first, and last time he asked me a cricket question. “Did he really get out on 99?” It took the best part of a weekend on the rare occasions he stopped talking to explain The Don averaged 99.9, not scored 99. “Whatever, Dad” before continuing to talk about something non-cricket related. He is no longer in my Will.
99.94. It’s a mythical number. Ask any cricket nuffy and they will rattle it off in a heartbeat. Four runs short of a century average. Four runs!
Cricket averages don’t tell their whole story, because they were never designed to. How could they when Bradman averaged 99.94 and WG Grace averaged 32.29? Imagine trying to explain that after half a dozen beverages at a trivia night, or to a melodramatic hyperactive adult-child? Players like WG and the Don and Beefy and The Master Blaster and Warney transcend cricket. Their names, and in Don’s case a number, live long after they are gone.
Sir Donald Bradman. (PA Images via Getty Images)
The ICC could change the way they record averages in cricket. The ICC could decide tomorrow to make it more reflective on the situational value of runs; taking into account variations and nuances and conditions. And Don’s average, and the mythology of his 99.94, will be wiped away.
Cricket culture is rife with mythology. The bail-burning ceremony to create the Ashes. WG Grace hammering the stump back in after being bowled. Keith Miller’s Messerschmitt analogy. Umpires hopping around when the score reaches 111. The what ifs of the 1970s South Africans. Trevor Chappell’s underarm problem. The Windies in the 80s. The ball of the century. Herschelle’s dropsies. The list is endless.
These all have their place in cricket mythology, and their stories that get past through us. It’s the stories and the characters we remember and Roar about. This includes the relative merits of the legendary number 99.94. I bet you have to read back to remember WG’s average. Thing is, his average doesn’t make him any less of a cricket legend.
Bradman may not be the greatest batsman. But he is part of our contemporary culture. His average is as much part of his legacy as Ned Kelly wearing a round metal chimney at Glenrowan. Some people still only know one cricketer: The Don. And he is debated and discussed endlessly. As he should. That this champion batsman finished so close to a century average helps keep the enduring fascination of Test cricket alive.
99.94: a number that will live in infamy.
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