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AV: I'd like to start by asking you about Don Bradman. You yourself had a long and distinguished career as a batsmen. When one talks about batting in general, and Australia specifically, Don Bradman is the first name that comes up. What is it like for someone like you to forever be in his shadow?

GC: It's interesting. I think all batsmen who have come into the game since Sir Donald Bradman are always going to have to be resigned to the fact that they cannot match the feats that he performed for some many years for Australia. In many ways his performances are freakish. To have averaged nearly a hundred over 80 odd Test innings is quite extraordinary. I never saw him play, but I have seen films of his batting. To imagine that somebody could dominate the bowlers like he did is phenomenal. I've seen some great players from Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards, Viv Richards, Rohan Kanhai, Gary Sobers and now Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Steve Waugh. They're all very good players, but to think that the next best player after Bradman averages 40 runs a game less is hard to imagine. He must not only have been a very good player, was very well balanced and had all the shots in the book but mentally he must have been just so much stronger than the others. You have to put Don Bradman in a class of his own and then think about the rest of the batsmen that have come after in a different group. It's an interesting question, one that I've thought about myself, but have never actually been asked. I would say that most people who played the game would never even consider themselves in the same class as Don Bradman.


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