During the recent radio coverage of the current Ashes tour, between England and Australia, I heard a great quote about Sir Donald Bradman, the famous Australian cricket player. It went as follows: In the 1980s, England's fast bowler Bob Willis had the fortune to meet Sir Donald Bradman, legend of cricket. Bradman had been the dominant player from the 1930s and 1940s and the Australian had amassed stats that are unlikely ever to be bettered. Willis was keen to get The Don's view on what he might have averaged if he had played in the modern game. Bradman looked at Willis and replied that he reckoned that he would have averaged about fifty runs per game. Willis expressed surprise, having thought that the great man might have expected to have averaged more. Bradman looked Willis in the eye and then responded along the lines of "Well, I am in my seventies now!".
I have watched on TV Ian Chappell narrate this same story, as an incident between him and Bradman when they met at a party celebrating Bradman turning 90. Very likely apocryphal.
Bradman survived the 'Bodyline' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyline) series where the bowlers (pitchers in American parlance) literally targeted the body to injure the players and to hamper Brandman's prowess. It had the desired effect (Brandman only averaged 56 for the series as opposed to his career average of 99.94) and resulted in multiple injuries.
As long as he gets the advantages of modern nutrition, fitness conditioning, and analysis, then I'm pretty sure Bradman would tower over modern day players.
Don't forget, in Bradman's time, there were no covered pitches, leg side theory was legal, batmen didn't wear helmets or much in the way of protection (and bowlers weren't that much slower than they are now).
I wonder how he would've fared against the present day Akhtars, Akhrams, Donalds, Steyns, Warnes or Muralitharans.
Would older greats have stood out as much faced with the technological and biological advances of the present day?