Relatives of Australian cricket legend Donald Bradman have revealed simmering tensions with a foundation that bears his name, disagreeing with the expansion of a museum celebrating his life.
The Bradman Museum, in the cricketer’s boyhood hometown of Bowral south of Sydney, became the Bradman Museum and International Cricket Hall of Fame in 2010, a move his family believe he would not have wanted.
“He wanted (the Bradman Museum) to be a small local entity,” his son John Bradman told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in a programme to air later Monday.
“And of course it is now greatly expanded in ways that he would not have supported.”
The Bradman Foundation, which was established in 1987 with the support of the cricketer and owns a range of his trademarks, defended the decision, saying they wanted it to remain relevant.
“We had to ensure it could engage with new audiences and we were also in an era where the game of cricket was evolving at a rate that far exceeded anything in Sir Donald Bradman’s time,” the foundation’s executive director Rina Hore told the ABC.
“And we needed to ensure that we had global international content so that our visitors that came to this museum could see their own heroes.”
Bradman’s granddaughter Greta Bradman said the cricketer’s family members “don’t expect others to necessarily feel the same way or feel as strongly as we do”.
“But if you can imagine a loved family member and having no control over their name or their likeness, and having it used in a way that you know would be profoundly not okay with that individual — it’s just something that we can’t live with.”
Bradman, widely considered the greatest cricketer of all time, retired in 1948 with a Test average of 99.94. He died in 2001 aged 92.