eith Ross Miller always rose to the occasion from that day in February 1938 when, as a mere 18-year-old, he made his first-class debut for Victoria against Tasmania and scored a magnificent 181 runs in 289 minutes. The war soon took priority over all else, but Miller made his mark on his first appearance at Lord’s with a century (105) in the first of the ‘Victory Tests’, a hastily arranged series to celebrate the end of World War II in 1945. Lord’s again it was, in the same year, when – representing a star-studded Dominion side led by West Indian Learie Constantine – Miller smashed a breathtaking 185 runs including seven towering sixes, an innings described by Sir Pelham Warner as “the greatest exhibition of batting” he ever saw.
These innings reflected the relief in a man who flew fighter planes during the war, skirting danger each moment, and now glad to be back in peacetime on terra firma. On his first appearance against England at Brisbane in 1946-47, he not only scored a fluent 79 runs, but bagged 7 for 60 and 2 for 17 whilst capturing Sir Len Hutton’s wicket – in the first ball in the second innings – as Australia cruised to victory by an innings and 332 runs. Miller always entered the arena with a bang!
So it was no surprise that when Australia’s greatest all-rounder left this Earth for the Elysian Fields on 11 October 2004, it was exactly 48 years after the day Australia began a test match best forgotten. It was the first occasion Australia played Pakistan. The date was 11 October 1956 and the venue was the National Stadium in Karachi. Australian skipper Ian Johnson won the toss in the one-off test and elected to bat – and the team was routed in the first innings for 80 runs by the great Pakistani opening bowling pair of Fazal Mohammad (6 for 34) and Khan Mohammad (4 for 43), who bowled unchanged. Here are excerpts from noted statistician and writer Bill Frindall’s report on the game: “Pakistan gained their first victory against Australia at the earliest possible opportunity. Played on matting, this match produced the slowest day of test cricket, the two sides combining to score only 95 runs on the first day (Australia all out 80, Pakistan 15 for 2). Australia’s total of 80 is their lowest against Pakistan and the lowest in any Karachi test. That innings provided the last instance of two bowlers bowling unchanged through a completed innings, and the only one for Pakistan.”
Miller (1919–2004) played cricket the same way he lived his life – with flair and panache. There was always an aura of charisma around the man. He was the ‘James Bond’ of international cricket, with his Hollywood looks to complement his prodigious skills on the field. Who else but Miller, captaining New South Wales in a Sheffield Shield game, when told that there were 12 men on the field, said: “One of you bugger off. The rest can scatter.”
Miller retired from cricket before One-Day International (ODI) cricket began. The dashing all-rounder would have been a captain’s dream to play ODI cricket. More than anything else, here was a man who played the game in the manner the summer game was meant to be played. Fittingly, the state of Victoria – for which he first played – accorded him the honour of a state funeral.
Born on 28 November 1919 in a suburb of Victoria appropriately named Sunshine, Miller was named Keith Ross by his parents after the record-breaking and daring aviators, Sir Keith and Ross Smith, who became the first duo to fly from Australia to England. The Miller offspring lived up to his parents’ expectations. Whilst bringing sunshine to all who watched him play cricket, he became a daring fighter pilot during the war. Young Miller was, however, first addicted to horse racing and wanted to become a jockey – but a sudden spurt in height as a teenager put paid to all those ambitions. Still a teenager, he became a champion Aussie Rules footballer – with a wonderful long kick – and played for St. Kilda (Victoria) and New South Wales.
As a bomber pilot in World War II, he did his tour of duty with the RAAF, flying Bristol Beauforts and de Havilland Mosquitoes on cross-channel raids. No wonder that playing cricket – even at test level – put no undue pressure on him. Cricket was first and last a game, a pursuit he undertook and participated in with convivial rivalry. Fittingly, he was nicknamed ‘Nugget’ – a man with a heart of gold.
Miller had the finest record of an all-rounder when he retired in 1956 after playing 55 Tests in 10 years, having scored 2,958 runs (36.97) and capturing 170 wickets (22.97). It took Sir Garfield Sobers to surpass his figures. Miller went on to captain New South Wales successfully and was considered by his contemporaries as the best captain ever to have led his country.
But his flamboyant attitude probably cost him the Australian captaincy. For instance, Bradman’s 1948 Australian team was making mincemeat of the Essex bowlers (scoring a record-breaking 721 runs in a day!) and when Miller’s turn came to bat, he lifted the bat deliberately to be bowled first ball off Trevor Bailey – and reportedly went to play a game of tennis! Easy meat was not for him. Bradman, batting at the other end, was not pleased and ominously murmured to Bailey: “He will learn.” During the second test at Lord’s, after Lindwall bowled the first over, Bradman threw the ball to Miller to start the second over, but in full view of the entire crowd, Miller threw the ball right back to the great man and did not bowl in the match.
Bradman was always the number-one drawcard and filled cricket grounds wherever he played. Miller, playing alongside, was another; but he added the spice, while his illustrious skipper provided the muscle. Hutton, the great England opener, recalled facing Miller at Trent Bridge in 1948, after having hit Miller for two successive boundaries: “I knew what to expect, and in eight balls I had five bouncers, one of which left the manufacturer’s imprint on my left shoulder. Two others leapt at my throat from just short of a length – as if they had been bowled no more than 10 yards away with a tennis ball.”
Stories in similar vein about this buccaneering cricketer are legion. Miller never forgot a friend. He named his third son Denis, after his bosom friend, England’s Denis Compton. When Ceylon’s famed batsman, Mahadeva Sathasivam, was accused of murdering his wife and wrongfully incarcerated, Miller made it a point to visit and cheer him up in prison. Then can one ever forget C. I. Gunasekera (Sri Lanka’s Keith Miller!) and Miller going neck-to-neck for their respective 100s at the Wanathamulla Oval when representing a Commonwealth team?
Ever the crowd-pleaser, Miller eased up at the end to let ‘CI’ breast the tape first. Turning to writing in his retirement with his mate, R. S. (‘Dick’) Whittington, the duo churned out highly readable stuff. Miller was later decorated MBE by Queen Elizabeth II, for his services to cricket. Severely afflicted by arthritis and a stroke in late life, this magnificent specimen of manhood was restricted to a walker and passed away on 11 October 2004, a few weeks shy of his 85th birthday, reminding us that even the most glorious of us is subject to decay and death.