There’s a little part of Aberdeen which offers a shrine to Australian cricket in the guise of the Bradman suite at Mannofield.
The home of Aberdeenshire CC is famous in the annals as being the ground where the great Australian batsman, Sir Donald Bradman, played his last match on British soil in 1948.
And the sepia-tinted pictures on the walls inside the clubhouse testify to how more than 10,000 spectators turned up to watch the “Invincibles” when they tackled Scotland in a two-day fixture in Aberdeen.
Bradman was a taciturn fellow, not given to emotional outbursts or tremulous histrionics. He believed cricket was a wonderful game, but he and many of his colleagues who had fought in World War II never forgot it was just a game.
So heaven knows what he would have made of the ball-tampering antics perpetrated by his compatriots in South Africa and their subsequent fall from grace in the last week.
In the space of a few days, baggy-green captain, Stephen Smith and vice-captain, David Warner, have been suspended for a year and opening batsman, Cameron Bancroft, has been banned for nine months. The incident has also proved the catalyst for the resignation of the Australian coach, Darren Lehmann, whose tenure ended with an embarrassing series defeat.
After their return home, Smith and Warner turned on the waterworks and their contrition seemed genuine. But, of course, the damage has been done and their reputations have been shattered.
Bradman, in contrast, was unsullied by con- troversy, or any suggestion of impropriety. He might have been a mirror image of his team-mate, Keith Miller, who was a genuine free spirit, but the Don had exalted standards.
Even during his visit to Aberdeen, where he caressed a typically classy century, he was the epitome of professionalism. And that is one of the factors which seems to have been lost among many of the current generation of cricketers.
It wasn’t just that Bancroft and Smith cheated, but the fact they did so in such an amateurish, ham-fisted fashion it was as if they thought they were indulging in a schoolboy prank. Yes, the hype which surrounded this unedifying affair was overblown and some of the criticism hypocritical. After all, former England captain, Mike Atherton, was guilty of the same offence in 1994 and was only fined £2,000.
But just when cricket needed a pick-me-up, it has been mired in scandal again.
One suspects Bradman would have detested the whole sorry saga.