Don Bradman and Walter Robbins with their wives
by Mayukh Ghosh
Australia’s tour of England in 1938 took place amid a seriously intense international situation. The players were so worried about the international scene that manager Bill Jeanes wired home a message asking for war risk insurance. It meant that the board would pay a stated amount in case the tour got cancelled due to the outbreak of war.
The request was swiftly put under the covers.
Then when Jeanes asked for an additional player as cover for Sid Barnes who injured himself at Gibraltar, the Board again took no time in saying ‘no’.
They didn’t allow the team getting photographed at Australia House and barred Bradman and Jeanes from giving interviews to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Board’s attitude to players’ wives on tour had already been a matter of dispute. The players never liked the diktat. They usually got their wives travel to Paris and then they used to go there to meet them.
At the end of the 1934 tour, skipper Bill Woodfull was permitted to meet his wife in Colombo. Jesse Bradman had to rush to London to be by the side of her ailing husband.
Four years later, the players were more cautious, and united. They discussed this in the team meeting even before playing their first match against Worcestershire.
Two decisions were taken:
a> they should be allowed to meet their wives on the way home
b> their captain (Bradman) should be permitted to meet his wife at the conclusion of the last Test match.
Jeanes, rather puzzlingly, asked for the Board’s consent only to the first request.
Three days before the First Test, Bradman got to know that only the first request had been taken into consideration.
He later learned the reason behind Jeanes’ strange behaviour. Jeanes feared that asking for an approval to bring Bradman’s wife might well have made his wife anxious to join the party and he didn’t want that to happen.
Now, to pacify a visibly furious Bradman, Jeanes sent another cable. This time asking for permission to get Jesse Bradman in England by September 15th.
It was 7-6 in favour of Jesse Bradman travelling to England but the Board insisted that they needed at least 75% majority.
The rejection made Bradman even more furious. He contemplated retirement. Dr. Roland Pope’s timely intervention stopped him from doing that.
Another team meeting, this time in Bradman’s absence, ensured that the players were all united and on July 9th Jeanes wired the Board stating what Bradman thought.
This time it worked.
They voted again, and the result was astonishing.
This time they allowed the wives of all players to join their husbands at the conclusion of the last match.
A relieved Bradman celebrated the decision by scoring a match defining century at Headingley.