Adelaide Oval celebrates strong links with Don Bradman as a player and an administrator
Robert Hannaford's statue of Don Bradman, now at the eastern entrance to the remodelled Adelaide Oval.
Adelaide Oval celebrates its strong links with Don Bradman as a player and administrator. The oval was special to Bradman the batsman. His debut and last first-class matches were there. In between that 1927-49 span, his 60 innings in 40 games at Adelaide Oval produced 4840 runs at an 89.62 average with 18 centuries.
Bradman’s 368 against Tasmania in 1936 is the record first-class score for Adelaide Oval and it was part of him leading South Australia to a Sheffield Shield win.
In seven Test matches and 11 innings at Adelaide Oval, Bradman scored 970 at an average of 107.77 with three double-hundreds, including setting the record for the highest individual Test score in Australia of 299 not out against South Africa in 1932.
Adelaide Oval was the setting for another two of Don Bradman’s extraordinary feats. He took Test wickets – his only two wickets – bowling leg breaks at the oval, against the West Indies in 1930 and against England (getting Walter Hammond) in 1933.
In retirement, Bradman, who made Adelaide his home for 65 years, was honoured at the Oval with the naming of the Bradman Dining Room in 1986 and the opening of the Sir Donald Bradman Stand in 1990. This stand was replaced in the remodelled Adelaide Oval, but his name adorns the new setup.
Following Bradman’s wishes, his collection of memorabilia is now housed in the Riverbank Stand at the oval.
After the hours spent at the oval as player and administrator, Bradman regularly visited the ground to sign memorabilia for fans until late 1998.
On his death in 2001, the memorial service at St. Peter’s Cathedral was relayed to spectators at the Oval. A sculpture of Bradman by Robert Hannaford was unveiled in Pennington Gardens on the eastern side of the Oval, on the first anniversary of his death in 2002. It is now at the eastern entrance to the remodelled oval.
