Woof! Slow news days, or what? With Greg Bird already getting used to life as the country’s most despised ex-sportsman and every Aussie player barring whatshername out of the tennis, it’s time to hit the emergency button marked “Bradman”.
And as luck would have it, not only has the great man turned 100 (although not in the flesh), he’s also been sucked into a statistical controversy – perhaps the biggest type of controversy there is. As Ricky Ponting points out today, the Don was left beached on 99.94 runs, giving the world one of its shiniest stats and the ABC its 9994 postal address.
Or was he? According to “fascinating recent research” (it says here), old scorebooks contain all sorts of old errors (stay awake there – this is science speaking). Scorebook, er, boffin Charles Davis says “it came as a great surprise to find that apparent errors and anomalies arise quite regularly.” But why, Chuck? Chronic scorer drunkenness? Pencil too soft? Other, darker explanations? We are not told.
Needless to say, whatever was going on in the crazy world of cricket scorers, they probably weren’t focusing on the Don. And if they were, he’d have got more than his due, surely, not less. Never mind Chuck’s “tantalising clue to four missing runs”. Just leave it alone, eh? Think of the poor old ABC. Oh, the humanity.