sport news Why Phillip Adams was totally wrong to make 'disgusting' claims about Don ... trends now
When newspaper columnist and ABC commentator Phillip Adams labelled Sir Donald Bradman a 'right wing nut-job', he not only proved himself to be a left wing nut-job, but a shoddy researcher to boot.
As for his assertion on Thursday that Bradman considered longtime friend Kamahl an 'honorary white' while at the same time refusing to meet with Nelson Mandela on racial grounds, that was not only factually wrong, but downright mean.
Kamahl, 88, was so upset by Adams's insult that he broke down and cried when contacted for comment by Daily Mail Australia reporter Peter Vincent.
Adams's attack on Kamahl was in retaliation to the Malaysian-born Australian singer coming to Bradman's defence after Adams had claimed on Twitter that the cricket legend had snubbed Mandela.
Kamahl and Bradman (pictured together) struck up a great friendship in 1988 - with the singer springing to the cricket great's defence in the face of stunning claims by Phillip Adams
Kamahl, who began a friendship with Bradman in 1988 which lasted until the cricket legend's death in 2001, asked Adams how Bradman could regularly invite the dark-skinned singer to his home while allegedly cold-shouldering Mandela.
'Clearly, Kamahl,' Adams tweeted in reply, 'he made you an Honorary White. Whereas one of the most towering political figures of the 20th century was deemed unworthy of Bradman's approval.'
Kamahl hit back, calling Adams's tweet 'disgusting at best'.
'You might be White,' he wrote. 'But oh your Soul is Black!'
The war of words between the two came after Adams had called Bradman a RWNJ (right wing nut job) in a tweet following the recent discovery of a private letter Bradman wrote to newly elected Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser in 1975.
Adams (pictured) claimed Bradman treated Kamahl like an 'honorary white' and deemed South African icon Nelson Mandela 'unworthy of his approval'
The singer (pictured with ex-wife Sahodra) was left distraught by Adams' take on the Don's mateship with him, and Aboriginal leader Warren Mundine called the comments 'disgusting'
In it the 67-year-old ex-cricketer, by then a stockbroker and financial consultant, congratulated the PM on his election win over Gough Whitlam's Labor Party two days earlier, and commented that the Australian public would have to be 're-educated to believe private enterprise is entitled to rewards, as long as it obeys fair and reasonable rules'.
Those sentiments, which so incensed Adams this week, obviously weren't out of step with the feelings of the majority of Australian voters at the time, shellshocked after less than three years of the Whitlam government's disastrous financial mismanagement.
Fraser and the Liberals won the election in a landslide, 91 seats to 36, suggesting that if, as Adams claimed, Don Bradman was a right-wing nut job, he had a lot of company back in the day.
As for this week's Kamahl slur and the claim that Mandela was 'deemed unworthy of Bradman's approval', Adams really should have done some homework.
In a reply to a tweet from fellow media commentator Gemma Tognini slamming his use of the term 'honorary white' Adams doubled down, accusing Tognini of ignorance.
'That's because you don't understand the history of the term as it was used by the apartheid regime,' he mansplained. 'Honorary white was a term that was used by South Africa's Apartheid regime in the 1960s to grant some of the rights and privileges of whites to non-whites'.
If Adams had done his research he would've found that Bradman took a strong stance against apartheid when he led the Australian Cricket Board in the early 1970s
That being the case, using it to shame Bradman put Adams on shaky ground. If anyone knew a thing or two about apartheid, it was 'The Don'.
No-one disputes the fact that Bradman was the greatest batsman of all time. Not everyone felt he was the best bloke. Some of his former team-mates, such as Bill Brown and Sam Loxton, revered him. Others, like Jack Fingleton, Bill O'Reilly and Vic Richardson (whose feelings were passed on to his grandson Ian Chappell) were less enamoured.
One thing on which they would all have to agree, though, was that Bradman was someone who, once he had made up his mind about something, could not be swayed.
And he did his research.
In 1971, the cricket world was in turmoil. The previous year, the South African apartheid government had put pressure on English cricket authorities to leave bi-racial batsman Basil D'Oliveira – a former South African by then a British citizen and regular member of the England side - out of their squad to tour the Republic.
The English had initially complied but when another player pulled out, D'Oliveira was a late inclusion. South African officials refused to accept the side and the tour was abandoned.
Meanwhile, the South African Springboks rugby side's tour of Australia had been disrupted by anti-apartheid demonstrations, with the Brisbane Test going
