Sydney: Australia will celebrate the centenary of their greatest sporting legend Donald Bradman on Wednesday by naming the star batsman’s sleepy boyhood town “the world’s spiritual home of cricket”. Schoolchildren, cricketers and Australians of all walks of life were expected to mark what would have been the 100th birthday of the famed cricketer on August 27. Bradman died in 2001 aged 92. The accolades were already pouring in Tuesday, with Australia’s current cricket captain Ricky Ponting praising the man known here simply as ‘The Don’ as the game’s untouchable superhero. “It’s almost like he’s separate from the game,” Ponting said.
“His name and what he achieved, it’s so far out of any player’s reach, in his time or any player who has played since, it’s almost like he played a different game to what we’re playing. He would have been the stand-out player whatever generation he played in.” Bradman was born in the town of Cootamundra but it was in Bowral where he first learned to play cricket. As a boy, he honed his reflexes and strokes by hitting a golf ball against a water tank with a cricket stump. Events will be held around the country, including a dinner hosted by Hollywood star Hugh Jackman in Sydney. Bradman’s son, John Bradman, said: “We are of course extremely proud of him, proud of his achievements, but more proud of him as a person, for the way he coped with those achievements.
