Seven decades on, Neil Harvey still feels guilty and blames himself for Sir Don Bradman’s failure to end his Test career with an average of 100.
Bradman, who needed just four runs in his last Test innings to record the incredible batting average of 100 – the 99.94 he ended with remains the best ever by far – was knocked over by Eric Hollies of England at The Oval on 14 August 1948.
In the previous Test of the series, at Headingley, Bradman was unbeaten on 173 when Harvey walked in and hit the winning boundary to give Australia a seven-wicket win and a 3-0 lead in the series. Harvey still feels that had he not hit that four, Bradman could have pulled off the Herculean feat.
“That four at Leeds makes me feel very guilty. It’s entirely my fault Bradman didn’t average 100 in Test cricket. If he would have scored those four runs instead of me, he’d have got there,” Harvey, who will turn 90 on Monday 8 October, told Sydney Morning Herald.
“I went in and Ken Cranston, a seam bowler from Lancashire, bowled this thing on my leg stump and I whacked it through mid-wicket for four. The public charging onto the ground and I can still remember Bradman yelling, ‘come on son, let’s get out of here’.”
Harvey, who scored 21 centuries in a 79-Test career, says he could never quite recover from the ‘guilt’ of unknowingly denying Bradman his perfect ending.
“I’m quite willing to take the blame. But I didn’t know he was going to get a duck in his last Test match … nobody knew Bradman needed four runs at Leeds; nobody knew he needed four runs when he played in his last Test at The Oval,” Harvey pointed out.
“Statistics were never mentioned back then; there was no television and no one in the press seemed to know. When the poor bloke was bowled that was it. He wasn’t going to get another chance because we dismissed England for 52 in their first innings.”
