The Cricket Box - Bradman & The Invincibles

Sir Don Bradman and The Invincibles of 48, a catch cry that every self-respecting sports fan would recognise in an instant. Unanimously known as Australia’s best ever cricketer, and best ever cricket team respectively, it is no wonder that a DVD has now been released in their honour. What we have here is not just one, but two different presentations released by ABC Video. One focuses purely on the life and career of the late Sir Donald Bradman, the other on the Invincibles tour of England back in 1948.

The ‘Bradman’ presentation focuses on how the legend grew up, played cricket, and became the greatest the game has ever seen. Sir Donald himself is interviewed in great detail about his life and his career and is also joined by interviews from old team mates like Bert Oldfield, Bill Brown, and Neil Harvey. Although this appears to be over ten years old, it was one of the Don’s last few interviews conducted before his death and is very interesting nonetheless. Even in his later years he was still a very charismatic character and was always enthralling to listen to.

The second presentation is entirely on the Australian cricket team's tour of England in 1948. This was the first test match series for the two teams since before the war and was highly anticipated by the English locals. Not only was the tour a white wash, but the Australians were undefeated for the entire tour, county matches and all. This has never been repeated in Australian cricket yet and possibly never will. As the back cover on the case says, “They played six days a week for five months and did not lose a match. They were The Invincibles.�

The video quality varies greatly on this disc, depending of course on the age of the footage. Most of the recent interviews seemed to have taken place some time during the '90s, and thus look a bit dated. There is some grain right throughout the presentations, and a general softness to all the colours. Film artefacts are occasional, but are not overly distracting.

Of course with the older, archival footage, this is a different story all together. Grain is a problem, but as would be expected it is the film artefacts that are the main problem. Now don’t let this distract you though, I am being very picky. The actual video quality of the footage from the 1948 tour for example is actually surprisingly good. Considering it has aged over 50 years, the actual footage has been looked after quite well and looks decades younger than it actually is.

The sound is a standard documentary style performance. Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, the soundtrack is basic, but is all that is required. There are no apparent audio sync problems, and the dialogue is generally quite clear and easy to understand. Some of the audio on the older footage sounds a little rougher, but that is to be expected. Overall it is quite satisfactory and fitting for this sort of presentation.

The extras however are lacking in substance, something we seem to have been conditioned with in regard to documentary style discs. Both presentations have a photo gallery, which contain some pretty average and uninspiring pictures. The 'Invincibles' presentation has some statistics for the five test matches played, and both presentations have well organised scene selection menus. This is what we’ve come to expect, but it is still a pretty poor effort considering this disc really is a collector’s item.

Overall this is a rather impressive disc, even though it may not appeal to all. Those who are fans of cricket and fans of possibly Australia’s greatest ever sportsman will definitely appreciate it though. This is one of the most comprehensive sporting titles that we’ve had released in region 4, and as such is well worth consideration when thinking of a fathers day or birthday present for the armchair sportsman in the family.