Bradman Bashing…and a Keith Miller myth, or two!

I have written three blog articles about the great Sir Donald Bradman. “My date with Don Bradman”, 21/4/2016) was an excerpt from my book, “LEON: A backward glance at boyhood”.The second blog  story, “Don Bradman and me…and Stephanie” (6/3/2017) tells again of some of Bradman’s remarkable batting performances and of a young girl’s Bi-Centennial school project about The Don.The third Bradman blog story, "Don Bradman. Was he any good?" (5/12/2019) is a recall of just how good The Don really was. This blog is basically about how Bradman Bashers used Keith Miller in their unrelenting efforts to besmirch the great man's memory. As Richie Benaud said at Don Bradman's funeral, Bradman was no saint, he had the same faults and foibles as all humankind. Some cricketers disliked him intensely. Others loved him dearly. What is undisputed by anybody is that Don Bradman is the greatest batsman who ever played the game of cricket. A game he loved.

Bradman has been dead for over twenty years but there are still those who take every opportunity to belittle him as a person and sometimes as a cricketer. Bradman’s total domination as a batsman in his first tour of England in1930 tour caused Douglas Jardine, and others, to design a Bodyline bowling attack to blunt his brilliance. Officially known as Fast Leg Theory , Bodyline had the bowler directing thunderbolts at the batsman’s body. Bodyline did curb Bradman’s brilliance but, in four tests he scored more runs than the  other Australian batsmen who played in five test matches. Bradman  actually scored more runs than all the English batsmen, except for Suttcliffe and Hammond, who played in five tests and scored marginally more runs than Bradman. Of course, they did not have to face Bodyline bowling.

Bradman’s average in the Bodyline series of 1932/33 was 55. This was well below his usual average but still better than anybody else’s average, on either side, for that tumultuous series. Usually, if a batsman  finishes a series with an average in excess of 50  he is considered to be a great success. For Bradman, it was deemed to be a failure.

Jack Fingleton was an Australian batsmen in those days. He became a respected journalist, author of several cricket books and an affable raconteur who told very funny stories. He also had a pathological hatred of Don Bradman and took every opportunity to belittle the great man in his writings and in his public speaking. Although he disliked Bradman, Fingleton was not stupid. He knew that writing a book about Bradman would always be a best seller. Fingleton made a lot of money writing about Don Bradman.

In more modern times, former Australian captain, Ian Chappell, has carried on the Bradman Bashing tradition of his grandfather, Victor Richardson. Richardson played in the Bodyline era. After the retirement of popular captain, Bill Woodfull, the veteran, Victor Richardson was appointed captain of the Australian cricket team that toured South Africa in 1935. Bradman did not go on that tour as he was still recovering from an illness that threatened his life on the tour of England in 1934. However, a bombshell exploded after that 1935/36 South African tour. When  the selectors picked the Australian Test team to play at home against England in 1936/37, they appointed the younger Don Bradman as captain. Victor Richardson and his family took it as personal affront. These days, whenever Ian Chappell speaks of Don Bradman he mocks him with a thin, nasal twang of derision.

Even the celebrity TV host, Michael Parkinson, had unkind words for Bradman. After his retirement, Parkinson lamented in his memoirs that he had not been able to obtain interviews with Frank Sinatra or Don Bradman. Parkinson then went on to write that Bradman had a “win at all costs” attitude to cricket that contrasted sharply with the devil may care, cavalier attitude of another Aussie cricketing icon, Keith Miller.

Parkinson quoted how in a 1948 tour match against Essex, Australia made 721 runs in a day’s play. Keith Miller was dismissed for a duck when the score was 2 for 364. The myth, which Parkinson reinforced, is that Miller was disgusted at the run feast against the county side. He strode out, did not take block and was clean bowled first ball. The myth says that he then turned to the wicketkeeper saying, “Thank God that’s over,” and then strode back to the pavilion. Bradman was batting at the other end. Later in the day Bradman  reminded Miller that he needed to use the county games to acclimatise himself for the Tests. Parkinson says this contrasted Bradman’s stern  ‘win at all costs’ approach to Millers’ more relaxed, debonair attitude.

Well, a couple of things. Bradman obviously played to win, as we hope all Australian cricketers and test captains do. Bradman loved and respected the game of cricket and always played hard and fairly within the rules of the game.  Of course, Keith Miller also  played to win. After that Essex duck and his little chat with Bradman, Miller made a double century against another county. In fact, in his career he made several double centuries against county sides and test sides. As a bowler, he certainly played to win. Miller knew that the English captain, Len Hutton, had injured his arm during the war and that this inhibited his ability to play the hook shot. Miller delighted in bowling lightning fast bouncers at Hutton. Perhaps, not so Cavalier after all. Perhaps Parkinson’s perception of The Don is wrong?  Maybe his perception of Keith Miller is wrong, too.

I say Miller’s tale of his lackadaisical  dismissal in that Essex match is a myth, based on the writings of well known cricket writer, Colin Frith and of Arunabha Sengupta, a dedicated researcher and writer on a cricket website, Cricket MASH. This website boasts that it is “a cover of the cricket world where tinted glasses are removed and returned free of rosy effects, repetition, biases and illusions. Where there is no place for myths.”

Colin Frith is quoted from his  article which appeared in the “Between Wickets” periodical. Frith admitted he was a self confessed fan of Keith Miller and claimed him as a friend. However, according to Arunabha Sengupta, Frith said the Essex story of Miller’s dismissal was a myth. Miller wrote an  account of his ‘cavalier’ dismissal in that Essex game which has been copied and repeated verbatim by such noted cricket writers as Dick Whittington, Jack Fingleton and Mihir Bose.

The myth holds, as Mihir Bose describe it, that  “Miller came in to bat when the score was 364 for 2. He took guard perfunctorily and to the very first ball that was bowled to him he lifted his bat, flung his hair back and was walking  towards the pavilion even before the bails had hit the ground. If ever a single situation could be said to epitomise the man, then this was it. Runs were there to be had, the Australians were to score another 357, but the idea had no appeal to him.”                                      Australia made 751 runs that day.

Miller wrote a whimsical biography in 1956 entitled, “Cricket Crossfire”, in which he described the Essex incident. “During that game I walked in to bat, did not take guard, made a sleepwalking stroke and was bowled. I turned to the wicketkeeper and said, ‘Thank God that’s over’ and walked away.”

David Frith begs to differ. He points out that Miller ‘Was not averse to indulging himself against ordinary bowling”, scoring double centuries against Leicestershire and Worcestershire. Frith also examined footage of an amateur  film of that Essex match. According to Arunbha Sengupta, that film does not show the actual dismissal. It does show Miller striding to the wicket, looking around the field and, “ contrary to his claim that he did not take guard, between 4.59 seconds and 5.01 seconds of the film, Miller can be clearly seen asking the umpire for his guard. That is taking a lot of trouble if he wanted to throw his wicket away.”

According to Frith, “The vital clue is the facial expression as the batsman turns and walks back to the pavilion. It is fairly blank…Not smiling mischievously or deceitfully...his return to the pavilion reveals if anything, the sort of disappointment and acceptance that most batsmen display when done first ball.”

Years later Frith contacted the Essex wicketkeeper in that game. He had no recollection of Miller making his famous “cavalier’ remarks on his dismissal. Arunabba Sengupta also notes that if Miller was walking back to the pavilion “even before the bails fell” he would have had no time to make comments to the wicketkeeper.

Arunabha Sengupta also refers to contemporary press reports of the dismissal which report  that “Miller played over a yorker from Trevor Bailey which knocked out his off stump.” Sengupta says playing over yorker is a long way  away from throwing  away your wicket. Malcolm Knox, another respected cricket writer, in his reconstruction of that 1948 Invincibles Tour said that, “ Miller is a self mythologist, not to be trusted.”

Of course, memory is an unreliable research device. In 2005, in the Foreword of my book, “LEON a backward glance at boyhood” I said I had done no real research on my biography as the people who knew the stories of my early life had all passed away. I  relied on my memory. I warned that Memory often presents things as bigger than they were, better than they were and sometimes, never as they were.” How true!  In LEON I had a few misremembered moments. I referred in several chapters to my experiences in Number 8 Platoon  during my National Service at Campbell Barracks. I actually was in Number 6 Platoon. Maybe the dashing Keith Miller misremembered his innings that day against Essex when he was bowled for a first ball duck.

One other Keith Miller myth that he wrote and spoke about often was that he was the cricketer who made 87 the Devil’s number for Australian test batsmen. Well,  intrepid researcher, Arunahba Sengupta, again provides confronting evidence to the contrary. According to Sengupta, “The story was penned by David Frith in the November 1990 edition of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Miller, by then 70 and suffering from cancer, told Frith that he was the one who gave birth to the ’87 nonsense’. The roots traced way back to the winter of 1929.

“That day, according to Miller: 'I’m just a kid in the outer, watching The Don bat … Christmas 1929, I think it was … So, I’d be what, 10? Anyway, Don’s seeing the ball as big as football. But suddenly ‘Bull’ Alexander bowls him! I’d looked up to see his score just before ‘Bull’ got him, and that score —87 — stuck in my mind. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Every weekend I’d look through the club scores, searching for more 87s. It became a sort of fixation.

'Even a few years after, when I began to play for South Melbourne alongside Ian Johnson, I was still conscious of this 87 thing. I always tried to avoid it when I was batting, but Johnno got out for 87 once and I said to him, ‘That’s bloody funny. I saw Bradman get out for 87 once.’ It was a sort of cult, a superstition.

"Anyway, after the war, into the early 1950s, Richie Benaud and Alan Davidson, and some of those blokes picked it up, but they didn’t really know what it was all about. And more years later I heard Paul Sheahan on the radio talking about this superstition being based on 87 being 13 less than 100. What a load of hat!' ”

When it was later pointed out that the records show  Bradman was dismissed for 89 in that Melbourne innings, Miller blamed a slow scoreboard for his belief that he was dismissed for 87. However, Arunahba Sengupta went to the newspaper accounts of the day. According to the newspapers Bradman went to lunch that day on 84. In the first over after lunch he hit a four to go to 89 and was bowled out on the very next delivery. Bradman had scored 89 in 125 minutes of the 127 runs scored while he was at the crease.  There was no slow scoreboard. The score had ticked over from 84 to 89 before Bradman was dismissed.

Bradman was a batting sensation who attracted attention wherever he went, even though he was a very private person and did not relish being a public celebrity. Miller was a flamboyant and charismatic character who likewise attracted great attention. Writer, Malcolm Knox, said, he was also “a self-mythologist”.

Miller, when asked  in a TV interview about pressure in cricket famously answered, “Real pressure is “having a Messerschmitt on your arse. Cricket is not.” This was a reference to his war service in the air force and gave rise to the dashing cricketer also being a fighter pilot. Miller was a wartime pilot in the air force. He may have done some training as a fighter pilot but he flew Mosquito Bombers and took part in two bombing raids over enemy territory. However, his air force career, like his cricket career, was blighted by his dislike of authority. He was involved in several crash landings during his training and faced disciplinary measures for various misbehaviours, includings absenteeism and swearing at  superior officers.

Although Fingleton and others liked to play up the uneasy relationship Miller had with Bradman, in his cricket commentating career Miller invariably referred to Bradman as the “Great Man”. Bradman respected Miller’s cricket ability and wrote about it in glowing terms. In fact, Bradman got on much better with Miller than did subsequent Australian Test Captains, Lindsay Hassett and Ian Johnson.  Miller derided Hassett and Johnson publicly and privately. He obviously felt that he would do a much better job in the  captaincy than they were doing.

Keith Miller may have resented authority and occasionally lacked the self-discipline required to always perform at his best. He may even have been a ‘self-mythologiser’. Like Bradman his career was affected by the war. He was 20 when war broke out and 26 before he played his first test match in 1946. He also excelled at Australian rules football, playing for St Kilda in the VFL. In 1947, when living in NSW, he played in the NSW state team that played in the 1947 Australian Rules Football Carnival in Hobart. He was also  among the very best cricketers in the world at batting, bowling and fielding, especially in the slips. Bradman Bashers, like Jack Fingleton and others, loved to use Miller’s sometimes rocky relationship with his Test captain as a weapon in their war against The Don.. However, Miller, in his writings and media commentaries was not a Bradman Basher himself.

In 1949 Miller was omitted from the Australian team to tour South Africa. Bradman Bashers had a field day blaming Don Bradman for Miller’s omission. Bradman  was not the sole selector but he copped all the blame. When opening bowler, Bill Johnston, was injured in South Africa, Miller was named as his replacement. He arrived in South Africa and had two months of practice before the first test.

After the war Miller became a well known and respected journalist. He lashed out in  an article in his Sydney newspaper in November, 1949, complaining about the people who said his omission from the touring side was all Bradman’s fault and “part of some hill-billy feud” between Bradman and himself.

Miller wrote in that article that   “Don Bradman is a remarkable man apart from his cricket. From various aspects. Bradman's life must be something of a nightmare. His life is hardly his own. He reminds me of a mannequin. All eyes are focused on him. He can't make a move without someone noticing it. Considering his greatness as a batsman, it may be said that, when dismissed, he finds little reason, as some batsmen do, to blame conditions when he fails.                                                      Many people imagine a tour by a team to another country as a life of luxury, a glamorised Cook's tour. But they forget moods vary and to handle a band of sports men, continually in one another's company for six months, requires tact and judgment above the ordinary. One false move from him becomes front page news. No wonder he is careful what he says.”

These latter comments reflect Miller's appreciation and admiration of Don Bradman's leadership of that 1948 Invincibles tour of England. The team arrived in London in mid April. After a week practising at Lords they embarked on a tour that saw them play Test and County Cricket matches six days a week, every week until mid August. They never lost a match. The Invincibles!

As a boy, I idolised Don Bradman and Keith Miller. I saw Miller play Sheffield Shield cricket at the WACA ground several times. On day, when I was about 12 years old, I arrived at the WACA about an hour before play. The NSW team was having a hit up in the nets, which in those days were actually situated on  the ground, in the southwestern corner. I took up a position behind the nets. There were only about two or three people in the ground at that time. As the practice session was winding up, Miller was batting and going for huge slog  hits over the bowlers’ heads. He looked magnificent. With film star looks, the body of an athlete and an imperious manner that made him appear invincible against all comers, he was enjoying himself and just  flogging the bowling.

 I called out, “Hit it out of the ground." 

Well. About two balls later, the magnificent Keith Miller hit the ball  over the centre wicket area and into the sightscreen just in front of the Old Farley Stand. On a clockface  it would have been hitting from 2-0clock to 7-0clock. It broke one of the wooden slats in the sightscreen that remained broken for the remainder of the Sheffield Shield season. The NSW players all yelled out and applauded the awesome hit.

“Was that one good enough, Sonny?” said my idol as he trailed  his bat along the practice wicket,  walking with his teammates back to their dressing rooms. I shouted out my approval, thrilled that the greatest Australian cricket all-rounder had acknowledged my presence. He may have been a "self mythologiser" but he was magnificent cricketer...and not a Bradman Basher!