The Don: Based on Interviews with Cricket Legend Sir Donald Bradman - Hardcover

Anyone who knows anything about Don Bradman will repeat by rote the most famous statistic in cricket: that his batting average stood at 99.94 when he chose to end his Test career. But that is all they are likely to know. "The most gentlemanly, polite, ruthless and efficient sporting dominator who ever lived" (in the words of one opponent), is also one of the most enigmatic characters. Viciously protective of his privacy, few have been granted an audience with The Don. Accounts of his life have perforce read like little more than statistical overload.

But at last there is credence in an author's claims to have produced the "Definitive Biography" of The Don. Authoritative and comprehensive, yes. But insightful too. From the Bowral boy whose ambition was to represent New South Wales, to Test match record breaker, to nonagenarian recluse, Bradman is painted above all as a human being. Most important of all, the tone is of the writer, not the statistician.

With exclusive and rare access to the Don in researching this book, Perry answers the most interesting question of all: What made someone who was a good, but not outstanding, teenage cricketer have a Test average almost 40 runs better than his nearest rival? The answer is not in a single sentence, but in the portrait of a shy but confident boy, unorthodox and self-taught who burned with ambition and danced to his own tune. --Thrasy Petropoulos

Roland Perry’s books include the international best-sellers Programme for a Puppet and Hidden Power, about strategy behind the election and presidency of Ronald Reagan. He has written other biographies on people as diverse as the radical Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett (The Exile) , the espionage agent Victor Rothschild (The Fifth Man), actor/director Mel Gibson and cricketer Shane Warne.