One reel shows the Australian batsman playing on his first tour in England in 1930, and another shows him eight years later scoring a century at Trent Bridge.

The last of the three reels found by the institute's researchers dates back to July 1913 and is believed to be the earliest surviving film of a county cricket match - a game between Sussex and Lancashire at Horsham. Among the players was Percy Fender.

With only a limited amount of film of first-class cricket surviving from the first two decades of the century, the record of the Sussex-Lancashire game is regarded as ``a major find''. David Frith, cricket consultant to the British Film Institute, said yesterday: ``We believe this is the earliest surviving newsreel of a county cricket match. It is an invaluable record of another age, and I know the clubs and cricket enthusiasts everywhere are eager to see what we have found. The Bradman footage is of historic importance because much of the known newsreel coverage of his career has been lost.''

The British Film Institute said: ``The films are in excellent condition and run at the correct speed.''

The reels are being screened at the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank on August 19. They will be preceded by a showing of the world's first cricket film, which captures Prince Ranjitsinhji, the first non-white to play cricket for England, during net practice in Australia in 1897.