Don Bradman 1948 team. For Bradman, it was the most personally fulfilling period of his playing days, as the divisiveness of the 1930s had passed. He wrote: With Bradman now retired from professional cricket, RC Robertson-Glasgow wrote of the English reaction "... a miracle has been removed from among us. So must ancient Italy have felt when she heard of the death of Hannibal". Bradman still holds the following significant records for Test match cricket: Bradman's Test batting average of 99.94 has become one of cricket's most famous, iconic statistics. No other player who has played more than 20 Test match innings
Don Bradman needed to score heavily as England had a strengthened batting line-up, while the Australian bowling was over-reliant on O'Reilly. Grimmett was overlooked, but Jack Fingleton made the team, so the clique of anti-Bradman players remained. Playing 26 innings on tour, Bradman recorded 13 centuries (a new Australian record) and again made 1,000 first-class runs before the end of May, becoming the only player to do so twice. In scoring 2,429 runs, Bradman achieved the highest average ever recorded in an English season: 115.66. In the First Test, England amassed a big first innings score and looked likely to win, but