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. In March 1948, Don Bradman led his 1948 test side onto the WACA ground in Perth for a friendly three day match against Western Australia before they sailed to England and Ashes immortality. It was the only time that Don Bradman captained his soon to be Invincibles in Australia. I knew all about Don Bradman because a lot of my Dad's wonderful bedtime stories were about Don Bradman and how he thrashed the England's bowling in 1930 and throughout his illustrious career. Dad demonstrated how Bradman played his shots through the gaps in the field. If a captain moved a fieldsman to plug a gap then then The Don would hit the ball into the gap created by the field change. Dad demonstrated how England's bowlers feigned exhaustion or injury in an effort to avoid having to bowl another over to the greatest batsmen of all.
With my Dad's permission, I wagged school at lunch time and went to WACA. I saw Don Bradman make 115 in very smart time. He straight drove the first ball for four and then accumulated runs at a rapid rate. I noted two tings. My Dad was right. Bradman managed to find gaps in field and he ran like a whippet to turn singles into twos. It remains on of the great thrills of my life to have seen Don Bradman make a century that sunny day in 1948,
About two years later, as a twelve yea 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 spectators at the back of the nets at that time. As the practice session was winding up Keith 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 of his NSW teammates.
I shouted out, “Hit it out of the ground, Keith."
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!
