June 1987

Miller the magnificent

John Arlott recalls Keith Miller, Australia's charismatic allrounder of the 1940s and 1950s

John Arlott recalls Keith Miller, Australia's charismatic allrounder of the 1940s and 1950s:



Arguably the greatest Australian allrounder © The Cricketer

Keith Miller was arguably the greatest Australian allrounder; perhaps appreciated even more in England than in his own country. Here he became both a cricketing hero and a popular human being; for it is important to realise that, outstanding as he was at cricket, the game was for him only a part of living life as fully as a man might do. At home, though, he tended to find officialdom petty; and certainly it took its toll of him, above all by denying him the captaincy of Australia for which he was so well-qualified. There is, though, no great point in arguing a case for so well-loved a player; and indeed no-one ever needed it less.

He still comes to England to go horse racing (he physically grew out of his childhood ambition to become a jockey), though that, too, is for him only part of the scene he had come to like well. His Christian names - Keith Ross - date his birth: he was named after the pilots, Sir Keith and Sir Ross Smith, on Nov 28, 1919 while they were making history with their 27-day flight from England to Australia.

First sight of him - with no knowledge of his cricket - was as a young Australian air-force pilot at a hectic night party in Brighton during the war. His vitality then, as ever since, was immense. He has remained a man of character, humour and, as some may not always realise, strictness in human relations. It was, indeed, what he considered pettiness on the part of officialdom in Australia after his war service that drove him to his few - but fierce - protests. He played first for his native Victoria - 18 matches between 1937 and 1946-47: sheer economic necessity first drove him to New South Wales, for whom he played 50 matches between 1947-48 and 1955-56, captaining them during his later years. With his natural capacity for surprise, in 1959 he turned up at Trent Bridge to play for Nottinghamshire in a single match against Cambridge University, when he scored 62 and 102 not out, with 13 fours and two sixes in his century.

He was a genuine allrounder: as a batsman he could command; but he could relax and lumber. All his life, he rose to a challenge: he scored a century - 181 - on his first-class debut. If he was a spectacular driver - and indeed he was - he was also a most delicate cutter, even of legspin. As a bowler he was usually categorised as fast-medium; but he could at moments bowl even faster than his comrade-in-arms, Ray Lindwall; and more than once in a Test match, off a full run, he sent down a perfect-length googly. In a match against Yorkshire on a turning pitch during the 1948 tour, he proved extremely effective as an offspinner (6 for 42 and 3 for 49); after which he made top score in a struggling innings. He had a poised and not unnecessarily long run, yet from time to time he would bowl at his fastest off a half-length approach. He moved the ball sharply off the seam and could make it lift quite alarmingly from only fractionally short of a length. All this is the more amazing for the fact that he first established himself in Australian State cricket as a batsman. Then, simply enough, in a Services match, he was thrown the ball to come on as fifth change and emerged forthwith as a natural pace bowler. In the field he was utterly brilliant; amazingly fast and nimble at cover point for one over six feet tall; and probably the finest slip fielder of his time, again an amazingly swift and lithe mover for his size.



He moved the ball sharply off the seam and could make it lift quite alarmingly from only fractionally short of a length © The Cricketer

With that Services side, the English public discovered him, and he made a glorious 185, at faster than a run a minute, for a Dominions XI at Lord's. When he returned with Bradman's side of 1948, England relished him in almost everything he did. This was true postwar cricket and Keith Miller rose to the occasion. In only the second match of the tour - against Leicestershire- he struck a most splendid 202 not out. In the very next match, he bowled out Yorkshire with those offspinners; and then made top score. In the first Test, with Lindwall injured and unable to bowl, Miller picked off the best of the England batting. At Headingley when, in the face of England's first innings of 496, Morris, Hassett and Bradman were hustled out for 68, it was Miller who settled in with Harvey to revive their batting. At The Oval, when Hutton and Crapp threatened to build a stand, it was Miller who came on to break the partnership. Yet, against Essex at Southend, on that same tour, when the Australians were making the highest total ever scored in a six-hour day of cricket, Miller simply pulled his bat out of the course of a straight ball from Trevor Bailey and allowed himself to be bowled. That tour established him in English cricket imagination and he has never fallen out of it. He came to England again in 1953 and 1956; in fact he was an Australian regular for some 10 years.

In his first Test against England - Brisbane 1946-47 - he followed his 79 with a first innings 7 for 60; in the fourth made his first Test hundred - 141 not out. For that series he finished second in the batting to Don Bradman (384 runs at 76.80) and second to Ray Lindwall in the bowling, with 16 wickets at 20.87. He rarely failed to make an impression on a match when the situation was tense and important; if it did not challenge him, he did not give a damn.

In 1950-51 he bowled crucially and batted quite magnificently at Sydney. In 1953, he made a significant 109 at Lord's. In West Indies, 1955, he made three hundreds and finished with an average of 73.16, including 147 at Kingston, his highest Test score, and 137 at Bridgetown.

He was the last man to care about figures but they must be adduced here to show his immense quality. Realise that, just after the start of his career, he lost five years to the Second World War and retired early - at 37 - after sustaining an injury in India. Yet when he left, after only (by modern standards) 55 Tests, he had the finest allround record in cricket history to that time. The second man, the monumental Wilfred Rhodes, no less, was 663 runs and 43 wickets behind him. In all cricket Keith Miller scored 14,183 runs at 48.90, with 41 centuries; took 497 wickets at 22.30, and held 136 catches. As a bowler in Tests, when he rose to the heights of his cricket, he took 170 wickets at 22.97 and made 2958 runs at 36.97, with seven centuries, plus 38 catches, many of them spectacularly prehensile.

He has been a happy man as a journalist, never forgets his friends and never misses a good party. Let no-one think, however, that this is simply a light-hearted partygoer; Keith Miller is a loyal and loving - but still humorous - family man; compassionate, kind, for all his humour. Perhaps of all the great cricketers he suffers fools, if not most gladly, most easily of all. Above all, he has produced much of the most exciting first-class cricket - batting to beat the bowler; bowling to defeat the best of batsmen on good wickets; and plucking unbelievable catches out of the air.

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