Don Bradman defied illness throughout his career

Sydney, February 28: As per the book images of Bradman, Sir Donald’s health problems initially surfaced in 1931 when he complained of feeling "off colour".

He put his ill health down partly to the stress of too much cricket and later complained that a public wrangle with the Australian Cricket Board had affected him.

The Board ruled he could not write for newspapers and play Test cricket at the same time unless solely employed as a journalist.

Sir Donald later revealed in his book, Farewell To Cricket, "you can imagine my mental state when this decision was conveyed to me."

Then came the Bodyline series in which the England fast bowlers broke with cricketing convention and bowled short-pitched deliveries aimed at the batsmen's bodies.

The series started without Sir Donald who was consigned by illness to being a spectator at the first Test.

He started the 1934 tour of England again in indifferent health and was persuaded to play the tour opening match against Worcestershire by captain Bill Woodfull.

"I played and under considerable strain, steeled myself to see through an innings of 206. It was made in quick time and obtained a cordial press but I was the only one aware of the drain on my resources. Indeed, it was largely as a result of this initial exertion that my cricket fell away." Sir Donald later wrote.

On the eve of the team's departure for home, Bradman suddenly fell ill. He underwent an emergency appendectomy and hovered close to death for several days with peritonitis. Bradman was considered lucky to have survived the ordeal. His wife Jessie rushed to be at her husband's side.

Sir Douglas Shields, a London-based Australian surgeon, operated on Sir Donald who spent weeks after the surgery and subsequent complications resting at Sir Douglas's home.

Sir Donald did not play cricket in 1934-35 because of the illness and was not fit enough to tour South Africa at season's end.

In 1938-39, Sir Donald said he had noticed a "definite slowing in muscle reaction and privately was contemplating retirement from cricket".

During World War II, Sir Donald was enlisted with the Raff but was transferred to the Army in 1940. After suffering increasingly severe muscle spasms, he was invalided from the Army in June 1941 in "constant, searing pain", Images of Bradman said. "The thought of ever playing cricket again was far from his mind."

For the next four years, Sir Donald battled fibrositis, a muscular ailment, which he was certain resulted from overexertion in his earlier cricketing days.

"Anyone who has suffered the excruciating pain of muscular ailments will understand how utterly immobilising it is," he later wrote.

At one stage, he was incapable of lifting an arm to comb his hair. "The job of rebuilding my health was toilsome. I often despaired of the outcome," he said.