The 1946–47 Australians defeated the touring England team 3–0 in the 1946–47 Ashes series. First-class cricket had continued in Australia until January 1942 and as grade cricket had continued throughout the war there had been less of an hiatus than in England. Their cricket grounds had not been bombed and compared to austerity Britain, Australia was a land of plenty, which allowed for a more rapid recovery than in the old country, as had happened after the First World War. There was no Sheffield Shield in 1945–46, but the Australian Services XI had played all the states and there had been non-Shield interstate games. However, Australia's main advantage was the encouragement of their younger players, in particular by Bradman. Though overshadowed by the great 1948 Australian team, in 1975 Don Bradman reckoned that it was Australia's strongest post-war home team, with the 1974–75 Australians coming a close second and the 1950–51 Australians third. It was also superior to the pre-war Australian teams, as though they were just as strong in batting they had no fast bowlers and depended heavily on the leg-spin of Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O'Reilly. In 1946–47 Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller emerged as a great new-ball partnership, with quality support from Ernie Toshack, Ian Johnson and Colin McCool. The only area for improvement was in finding another top-order strokemaker, which was soon resolved by the arrival of Neil Harvey.
The captain
Batsman
He was not the most exciting and entertaining of batsmen, but was untouchable when it came to efficiency and all-round batting strength. He had self-confidence that was quite chilling and there was not a bowler he did not feel he could master. There was something of a "Little Dictator" about him at the wicket, and an indication of his legendary run-making skill is that it was considered a failure whenever he missed out on a century. Tom Graveney Donald George Bradman, better known as Don Bradman or The Don, was the greatest batsman of all time, ranked first in ESPN's Legends of Cricket and can be statistically regarded as the greatest sportsman of all, as "no other athlete dominates an international sport to the extent that Bradman does cricket". His unorthodox grip meant he could not cream the ball through the covers like Wally Hammond and purists contend that Jack Hobbs was better on a sticky wicket, but on any pitch that did not make batting a lottery he simply made more runs. He made them fast too, until the 1990s his 3.7 runs per six ball over in Tests was the fastest scoring rate of any batsmen except Gilbert Jessop (4.2). Even if his pre-war career was ignored his feats would make him the greatest batsman of all time; 680 runs (97.14) against England in 1946–47, 715 runs (178.75) against India in 1947–48 and 508 runs (72.57) in England in 1948, with 8 hundreds in his last 15 Tests. Ironically he was bowled by an Eric Hollies googly for a duck in his final Test innings when he was 4 runs short of a batting average of 100.00, he had to settle for 99.94.