The Day Don Bradman Scored 309 Runs

By the end of play at Headingley on July 11, 1930, Don Bradman had scored 309 runs without being dismissed. He had reached a hundred before lunch and kept going through the afternoon and evening. The Australian was twenty-one and on his first tour of England. A single day’s batting had made it difficult for spectators, opponents and newspaper readers to decide what an ordinary scale of achievement should look like.

For a reader unfamiliar with cricket, the essential point is not that Bradman struck the ball 309 times. Runs can be accumulated by running between the wickets or by hitting boundaries worth several runs. The challenge is to keep scoring while avoiding the many ways a batter can be dismissed. A century, one hundred runs in an innings, is already a substantial achievement. Bradman had passed that threshold three times in one day against England’s Test bowling attack.