Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football & Sporting Memorabilia

Donald George ‘Don’ Bradman. New South Wales, South Australia & Australia 1927-1949. Airmail typewritten letter from Bradman to Alan Hill, Verity’s biographer. Bradman is responding to Hill’s request for his thoughts on Verity and in particular the Lords Test of 1934. Extracts from Bradman’s reply read ‘Now what can I say about him?. Undoubtedly he was one of the greatest slow left hand spinners of all time. His record testifies to that. His run to the wicket was amiable and just long enough to get him into a perfect delivery position. His control of length and flight was immaculate. He had a placid temperament, was a fine sportsman with none of the tantrums one sometimes sees from others. You particularly mention the Lord’s Test of 1934, in which he achieved such success on a wet wicket. This was a piece of fate which might so easily never have occurred’. Bradman then goes onto to explain how after England had made 440 in their first innings, Australia batted and at the fall of the first wicket ‘I went in and just happened to be in very good form. With due modesty I quote Cardus who wrote “In 45 minutes he made every English bowler look like an indifferent net practice trundler”. I had made 36 including seven fours, three of them in succession from Verity and I was anxious to go on the attack’. He then goes on to state that his captain Bill Woodfull begged him to be less aggressive and not throw his wicket away. In trying to restrain himself he felt that he held back on a shot and was caught and bowled by Verity. ‘This naturally curbed the rate of scoring. Over the weekend it rained and Australia had to continue batting on a rain affected pitch. Had I been allowed to continue batting on the Saturday in my own way I am in no doubt that we would easily have easily saved the follow on. As it was we were seven runs short and were sent in for a second time. Had we saved the follow on, England would have had to bat on that sticky on the Monday. The course of the match would have been changed and Hedley would never have got the chance to bowl at us in the second innings, which enabled him to put up such a wonderful record breaking performance. No Australian left hander of that type was Verity’s equal and of the Englishmen I saw, White, Rhodes, Underwood, there is no doubt Hedley was as good or better than the others. Signed ‘Yours sincerely Don Bradman’. The letter dated 18th January 1984. Good condition. Sold with a further shorter typewritten letter from Bradman, with envelope, dated 7th February 1985 informing Hill that he has written the foreword and posted it direct to the publisher, he also talks of the biography that had been published about himself. Sadly, Bradman’s signature has been cut from the letter. From the archive of Alan Hill, Hedley Verity’s biographer