Ray wrote
Do you guys think that the gear available to the cricketers playing today has anything to do with performance. eg. a batters helmet, improved padding (leg and fingers being lighter and more effective). And then again, are the players today taking perf enhancing stuff? So, really can you compare? Can you compare the amateur game to the professional one? Can you compare a player who plays one test series a year (inbetween holding down some or other career job) to one who plays 3 -5 series a year?
There's some who argue that modern players don't play fast bowling as well BECAUSE of the protective equipment. Back in Bradman's day if you got hit you were going to be in a lot of trouble, so players learned to not get hit.
That's the theory. I'm always wary of such things because there's a lot of old timers out there who hold that [fill in the sport] was more manly in their day because you stood more chance of getting hurt, maimed or killed. Back in the 60s Jackie Stewart got called all sorts of names because he was campaigning for better safety at race tracks and decided that he'd be a lot happier if he finished his career alive and his friends got to do the same. He was accused of emasculating race tracks blah blah.
Bradman faced what is held to be the most terrifying onslaught ever in cricket. OK.... Lillian Thompson and the West Indies attacks of the 70s and 80s were pretty nasty, but Bodyline had the extra element of a concentrated leg stump attack at high speed and short length with a lot of fielders on the leg side and especially behind square on the leg side - law changes mean that such fields are ruled out for at least 40 years now. Oddly not that many people got hit on the head in that series, which suggests either that Bodyline was not as bad as it's made out to be, or that modern players get hit more. Certainly Malcolm Marshall inflicted a lot more physical damage than Harold Larwood ever did.
Bradman's 1948 side included Keith Miller, a very good all-round cricketer with great flair and movie star looks - dashing batsman, excellent fielder, very fast bowler. Miller had been an RAF pilot in WW2 and had once crash landed his plane when the undercarriage had failed and a bomb failed to detach. He turned out for Australia in 1948 so we can assume that he survived this incident. He'd been in the Battle of Britain, had flown patrols to intercept doodlebugs and to down them by flying along side them and tipping the bug's wings with your plane's wings. He had a different idea about courage and pressure than a lot of players, including Bradman (who volunteered but didn't do battlefield service). Bradman was giving the team a talk about "pressure" one day, how the poms were going to come at them with this kind of bowling and set this kind of field. Miller famously put up his hand and interjected with "Excuse me, Skipper, but that's not pressure. When you've run out of ammunition and you've got a Messerschmit up your arse then THAT is pressure."
