Trivia Pursuit

Alternatively, try 8216;8216;Hutchins, Brett8217;8217; page 169: 8216;8216;Tasmanian academic who wrote a PhD thesis of 75,000 words titled Bradman: Representation, Meaning and Australian Culture, completed at the University of Queensland between 1998 and 2001.8217;8217;

Hutchins explained his objective was to 8216;8216;layer different dimensions of Bradman8217;s representation, each dimension affecting and modifying the other, thereby creating an 8216;ensemble of narratives8217; that help explain why he is a hero.8217;8217;

Somewhat more intelligible is 8216;8216;Mask of Fu Manchu, The8217;8217; page 208: 8216;8216;Movie in production when the Australian team visited the set at MGM Studios in Los Angeles during Arthur Mailey8217;s tour of Canada and the US in 1932. The players were photographed with the stars of the film, Englishman Boris Karloff a former wicketkeeper/batsman and Myrna Loy.8217;8217;

For all his achievements at the crease and his near-mythical status as the perfect batsman, the Don evoked strong dislike in sections of his own country8217;s cricket fraternity. Certainly the brash but fiercely talented Australian team of the 1970s, shaped by Ian Chappell, didn8217;t worship him; just the Ganguly-Dravid team doesn8217;t always appear to be awe of Sunil Gavaskar.

In the case of the Don, the 8216;8216;heresy8217;8217; was probably rooted in the cricket team politics of the 1930s, when he found himself ranged against Bill O8217;Reilly and Jack Fingleton. This book makes the suggestion, as have others, that it may have been a sectarian issue: Protestant Bradman versus his Catholic team mates.

Whatever the case, among those who placed the Don on a pedestal somewhat lower than Hercules was 8216;8216;Richardson, Victor York8217;8217; page 258: 8216;8216;A grandfather of cricket8217;s three Chappell brothers, Richardson8230; was vice-captain to Bill Woodfull in England in 1930 claiming after the tour that Australia could have won the test series without Bradman but not without Grimmett.8217;8217; Some of Richardson8217;s clarity8212;for lack of a better word8212;must have been passed on to his daughter8217;s sons.

Richardson also finds mention in the book8217;s most entertaining, illuminating entry: 8216;8216;Fingleton, John Henry Webb OBE8217;8217; page 129. Jack Fingleton was a fulltime journalist and test cricketer in the 1930s. Later generations remember him for his accomplished books Brightly Fades the Don, on the 1948 tour; Batting from Memory, his last work.

An accomplished opener, he was dropped from the 1934 tour of England because, he believed, Bradman preferred Bill Brown. The feud went back to 1932-33. During the Bodyline series, Fingleton was accused of leaking the story of the famous exchange between Woodfull and MCC manager Plum Warner 8216;8216;There are two teams out there. One is trying to play cricket8217;8217; to the press. He swore he was innocent, but being a journalist suspicion fell on him.

The source of the story, Fingleton believed, was Bradman, a charge the Don denied. The ill will survived decades. As late as in 1980, a year before he died, Fingleton said of his former colleague they once put together 346 in a test match against England: 8216;8216;He is still a great hero but in many ways he was a little, churlish man.8217;8217;

Someday an Indian cricket writer will put together just such an exhaustive compendium of facts about Gavaskar and Kapil Dev and Tendulkar. Someday an Indian cricket writer will be just as honest about controversy. Someday Bangladesh will win the world cup. Someday8230;