क्रिकेट का एक गीत: ही वॉज़ मोर दैन जस्ट अ बैट्समैन

डॉन ब्रैडमैन की क्रिकेट के बारे में उतना ही लिखा जा चुका है जितना शेक्सपीयर के नाटक 'हैमलेट' के बारे में. जीते जी एक दन्तकथा बन चुके थे वे. साहित्य, संगीत और कविता में सर डॉन पर जितना लिखा गया, वह बड़े बड़े बादशाहों को रश्क से भर देने को पर्याप्त है. मिसाल के तौर पर १४ फ़रवरी १९३३ को उनकी शान में ब्रिटेन की एक पत्रिका में छपी एक आस्ट्रेलियाई कवि की इस कविता में ब्रैडमैन के अस्तित्व भर को सारे आर्थिक और राजनैतिक संकटों से पार पाने का साधन बताया गया है:

Our Harbour which art in Heaven
Sydney is thy name
The Bridge be done
If not in 1932 then in 1933
Give us this day a crown –
For Bradman’s head
And forgive us our swelled heads
And forgive those blighters in Melbourne
Who trespass against us
Lead us out of financial depression
And deliver us from all rotten Government
For ours is the Harbour, the Bridge and Bradman
For ever and ever
Amen

और अब सुनिये जाने माने गायक-गीतकार पॉल कैली की आवाज़ में इस मिथकीय खिलाड़ी की कथा :



Sydney, 1926, this is the story of a man
Just a kid in from the sticks, just a kid with a plan
St George took a gamble, played him in first grade
Pretty soon that young man showed them how to flash the blade
And at the age of nineteen he was playing for the State
From Adelaide to Brisbane the runs did not abate
He hit 'em hard, he hit 'em straight

He was more than just a batsman
He was something like a tide
He was more than just one man
He could take on any side
They always came for Bradman 'cause fortune used to hide in the palm of his hand

A team came out from England
Wally Hammond wore his felt hat like a chief
All through the summer of '28, '29 they gave the greencaps no relief
Some reputations came to grief
They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn
And in the hour of greatest slaughter the great avenger is being born
But who then could have seen the shape of things to come
In Bradman's first test he went for eighteen and for one
They dropped him like a gun
Now big Maurice Tate was the trickiest of them all
And a man with a wisecracking habit
But there's one crack that won't stop ringing in his ears
"Hey Whitey, that's my rabbit"
Bradman never forgot it

He was more than just a batsman
He was something like a tide
He was more than just one man
He could take on any side
They always came for Bradman 'cause fortune used to hide in the palm of his hand

England 1930 and the seed burst into flower
All of Jackson's grace failed him, it was Bradman was the power
He murdered them in Yorkshire,he danced for them in Kent
He laughed at them in Leicestershire, Leeds was an event
Three hundred runs he took and rewrote all the books
That really knocked those gents
The critics could not comprehend this nonchalant phenomenon
"Why this man is a machine," they said. "Even his friends say he isn't human"
Even friends have to cut something
He was more than just a batsman
He was something like a tide
He was more than just one man
He could take on any side
They always came for Bradman 'cause fortune used to hide in the palm of his hand

Summer 1932 and Captain Douglas had a plan
When Larwood bowled to Bradman it was more than man to man
And staid Adelaide nearly boiled over as rage ruled over sense
When Oldfield hit the ground they nearly jumped the fence
Now Bill Woodill was as fine a man as ever went to wicket
And the bruises on his body that day showed that he could stick it
But to this day he's still quoted and only he could wear it
"There's two sides out there today and only one of them's playing cricket."

He was longer than a memory, bigger than a town
He feet they used to sparkle and he always kept them on the ground
Fathers took their sons who never lost the sound of the roar of the grandstand

Now shadows they grow longer and there's so mush more yet to be told
But we're not getting any younger, so let the part tell the whole
Now the players all wear colours, the circus is in town
I can no longer go down there, down to that sacred ground

He was more than just a batsman
He was something like a tide
He was more than just one man
He could take on any side
They always came for Bradman 'cause fortune used to hide in the palm of his hand