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The last hurrah...

Sir Donald Bradman is living proof that champion sportsmen shouldn't be judged as being only as good as their last game.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Bradman's last innings in Test cricket. His international finale was in the fifth Test between Australia and England at the Oval in London, August 14, 1948.

He was bowled for a duck, a tragic anticlimax to a brilliant career.

The Australian captain was given a standing ovation as he strode to the crease for his last Test innings. He was 39, just weeks shy of his 40th birthday, and his first class career had spanned 21 years.

The English cricket team even gave him three cheers as he walked out to bat.

He needed to score only four runs to finish with a Test average of 100. Nobody has been close to this mark, before or since.

It must have seemed elementary that a man who could frequently belt 300-plus runs in an innings could notch a measly four runs when he needed them.

But he was bowled by the second ball he faced. England bowler Eric Hollies claimed the biggest scalp of his career, with a googly that the master batsman somehow failed to read, and Bradman departed the wicket with a Test average of 99.94.

He had taken guard just before 6 pm local time and safely played the first ball, a leg-break.

The next was pitched on a perfect length, a googly which spun past Bradman's forward defensive stroke and clean bowled him.

Australia went on to win the test by an innings and 149 runs, and tie up the series 4-0, but it was little consolation to Bradman the undisputed best batsman of all time.

If anyone deserved to achieve the incredible feat of a 100 average, it was Bradman. He was a national hero. And is still celebrated as a "living treasure''.

Donald George Bradman must have held every batting record in international cricket in his heyday. He played 52 Tests, scoring 6,996 runs in 80 innings at an average of 99.94. He scored 29 centuries and remained unbeaten 10 times.

Not only was Bradman prolific, but he scored his runs quickly.

He held records for hitting 2000 test runs in 22 innings, 3,000 in 33 innings, 4,000 in 48 innings, 5,000 in 56 innings and 6,000 in 68 innings.

He was the first batsman to score 900 runs in a series, hitting 974 (averaging 139) in seven innings during a five-Test series against England in 1930. On that tour he had innings of 334 at Headingley, 254 at Lord's and 232 at the Oval.

In first class cricket, he scored 28,067 runs at an average of 95.14, including 117 centuries. He scored more than 200 in an innings on an incredible 37 occasions.

Bradman was born in rural New South Wales on August 27, 1908. He was the son of a carpenter and farmer.

He was just 5 feet 7 inches (1.67-meter) tall but had the ability to tear any bowling attack apart.

Folklore says he practised as a boy by repeatedly hitting a golf ball against a corrugated-iron water tank with a cricket stump just to sharpen his reflexes.

Whatever he did, it worked. He made his first class debut for NSW in the Australian domestic competition in 1927, aged 19. He scored 118 on debut against South Australia in Adelaide.

Bradman made his Test debut for Australia against England in 1928-'29. He scored 18 and one and was responsible for running-out a senior batsman as England won the first Test in Brisbane.

He was made 12th man for the second Test before returning in the next match to score 79 and 112. He was never dropped from the starting XI again.

It was after he scored 806 runs against the West Indies at the amazing average of 206, in 1931-'32 that prompted england to employ the infamous "bodyline'' tactics to combat him in 1932-'33.

England fast bowler Harold Larwood, who later migrated to Australia, was ordered to bowl leg theory at the Australian batsmen to knock the confidence out of them.

The Bodyline series changed the face of cricket. The Australians took a battering. One batsman suffered a cracked skull and others were taken to hospital after sustaining sickening blows to the body.

Mounted police were called in to quell crowd unrest at the Adelaide Oval in the third Test as tempers reached boiling point.

England eventually won the series 4-1 but Bradman won the hearts of the nation by defying the Bodyline tactics and scoring at a respectable average of 56.57.

He toured England in 1934 and helped Australia reclaim the Ashes with a 2-1 victory. He captained Australia in all five series between 1936-'37 and 1948.

As captain, he won every series. On the 1948 tour his side was undefeated. If the second World War had not interrupted his career, he would undoubtedly have set scoring records that would never be broken.

After his retirement, he faded out of public life and rarely granted interviews to journalists.

UNI