What exactly is 'Bradmanesque'?
When Michael Hussey averaged 84.80 in his first 33 innings, his feat was called Bradmanesque
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
When Michael Hussey averaged 84.80 in his first 33 innings, his feat was called Bradmanesque. But can you really compare a batsman's early career to Bradman's 99.94, compiled over 21 years. On cricketweb.net, Dave Wilson decides the only way to make a comparison is to take Bradman's first 33 innings into account.
Bradman scored almost half as many runs again as did Hussey, but it's when we look at the big scores each man compiled that the gap between them is most apparent - of the 17 scores over fifty made by Bradman, he converted an amazing 76% of them into centuries, and, even more amazing, six of his thirteen hundreds were doubles or better. Hussey, on the other hand, had almost as many scores over fifty, however only four were centuries (28% conversion rate) and none were doubles. It would appear that Hussey, with his higher number of incomplete innings, was more the beneficiary of the method by which averages are calculated - looking solely at per-innings averages, Bradman comes out at 91.51 to Hussey's 64.24. So the only thing "Bradmanesque" about Hussey's performance was his high average.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo