nearest cricket player with an average is graeme pollock at 60, bradman averaged 99.94 and all this on uncovered minefeilds as opposed to the batsman friendly pitches they play on these days
World sport context
Wisden hailed Bradman as, "the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games".[1] Statistician Charles Davis analysed the statistics for several prominent sportsmen by comparing the number of standard deviations that they stand above the mean for their sport.[231] The top performers in his selected sports are:[232]
Athlete Sport Statistic Standard
deviations
Bradman Cricket Batting average 4.4
Pelé Association football Goals per game 3.7
Ty Cobb Baseball Batting average 3.6
Jack Nicklaus Golf Major titles 3.5
Michael Jordan Basketball Points per game 3.4
The statistics show that "no other athlete dominates an international sport to the extent that Bradman does cricket".[2] In order to post a similarly dominant career statistic as Bradman, a baseball batter would need a career batting average of .392, while a basketball player would need to score an average of 43.0 points per game.[232] The respective records are .366 and 30.1.[232]
When Bradman died, Time magazine allocated a space in its "Milestones" column for an obituary:[233]
... Australian icon considered by many to be the pre-eminent sportsman of all time ... One of Australia's most beloved heroes, he was revered abroad as well. When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison, his first question to an Australian visitor was, "Is Sir Donald Bradman still alive?"