In T20 age, the legacy of Bradman lives on in sleepy Bowral

SYDNEY: The change of pace that might lure you away from all the shebang that T20 cricket throws in your face lies 120km south of Sydney, in a sleepy town called Bowral. Here, Don Bradman still lives on.

A quaint habitat of around 12,000 residing in brick and wood homes, laced with roads wide enough to play a proper game of afternoon cricket, Bowral in 2022 couldn’t have been much different from 1922. Even the change of trains—from the modern double-decker intercity to the steam powered two-coach version—is like a time travel to when Bradman was a boy.

To get in touch with Bradman though, you have to find your way through the roads winding uphill. Fifteen minutes from the station, around St Jude Street, peeks at you a lush green stretch. You have reached Bradman Oval. Around this white-fence lined majestic centerpiece are Bradman’s two homes.

On 52, Shepherd Street, stands the home Bradman where lived from 1911 to 1924. The second, on 20, Glebe Street, is the one Bradman helped his father build and stay between 1924 and 1928 before moving to Sydney.

Bordered by massive trees, grass banks, benches and a small picketed gate, the Oval is harked back in time. The small pavilion, opening out to a stand that holds around 50 spectators, effortlessly fuses with the ground without being obnoxious. So topnotch is the curation and maintenance that calling the Oval picture-perfect won’t be an exaggeration. Just behind it is the Bradman Museum and the International Cricket Hall of Fame. To a cricket nut, the halls explaining aboriginal roots of cricket in Australia, the Ashes and on the man himself, takes up most of the time. For the uninitiated, well-curated galleries and videos give a nice lowdown of the origin of cricket, its current standing and the significance of the Kerry Packer series.

A Bradman Walk takes you through this loop around the Oval, into museums, galleries and on to the roads to his houses. The most astonishing bit of memorabilia has been preserved in the halls detailing Bradman’s life and work. Black and white videos of Bradman’s interviews, a reel of “How I play cricket”—one of the documentaries on Bradman—are played in loop on sourced old TVs and screens. Another plays out the drama of Bodyline and how it affected Bradman’s Test average. From the walls, Jardine, Ranjitsinhji, WG Grace and Victor Trumper stare at you as the mind tries to take notes of Bradman’s correspondence, his first bat, Baggy Green and gloves.

At 52, Shepherd Street, Bradman used to hit a golf ball off a cricket stump onto the base of the tank. The museum has a replica of that stump and golf ball. The most stunning piece of work is the dressing room corner where a cricketer sits exhausted and disconsolate, face buried in his hands. You remember how Steve Smith, coy and in awe, took a photo sitting beside this man. Hats and overcoats are hung over hooks placed on the headboard if you sit on that bench, and from underneath you can see boots peeping out. Nothing can take you back in time better than this life-like reminiscence.

Bowral, however, isn’t just about the museum, memorabilia or the Bradman Walk. History speaks to you, silently narrating the story of a boy who made his first hundred as a 10-year-old here before sailing the seas and conquering different frontiers. The ground, his houses and the museum, the statue called Final Salute that was installed at the entrance pavilion after his death, everything reminds you this is Bradman land. He lives here, now and forever.

HT Don Bradman’s bats and Baggy Green at Bradman Oval.