Sir Donald Bradman saw more cricket than anyone else in the 20th century. He personally watched virtually all the best cricketers from all the major playing nations, as well as both playing in and selecting Test sides from 1928 to 1971, giving him an unprecedented appreciation of the best the sport had to offer. Added to this was a skill in judging a cricketer's capacities and talents that was second to none. Bradman retained all the detail of every match - from the trivia to the humourous moments - and he never lost the ability to distil it all with quite extraordinary perspicacity. And towards the end of his life, from a whole century of cricketers, he selected the very finest twelve for his ideal team. Now, you can read about that team, in the words of the great man himself and in so doing gain an insight into the game he loved.
Professor Roland Perry (born 11 October 1946) is a Melbourne-based author best known for his books on history, especially Australia in the two world wars. His Monash: The Outsider Who Won The War, won the Fellowship of Australian Writers' 'Melbourne University Publishing Award' in 2004. The judges described it as 'a model of the biographer's art. In the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 2011, Perry was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia 'for services to literature as an author.In October 2011, Monash University awarded Perry a Fellowship for 'high achievement as a writer, author, film producer and journalist.His sports books include biographies of Sir Donald Bradman, Steve Waugh, Keith Miller and Shane Warne. Perry has written on espionage, specialising in the British Cambridge Ring of Russian agents. He has also published three works of fiction and produced more than 20 documentary films. Perry has been a member of the National Archives of Australia Advisory Council since 2006.
In late 2012 Perry accepted an adjunct appointment at Monash University as a Professor, with the title ‘Writer-in-Residence’ in the University’s Arts Faculty.