Great Australian Test Cricket Stories by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2021-10-31T15:21:47+00:00

Len Hutton told me that Bradman was a ‘far better player’ in the 1930s than he was when I saw most of his batting on the 1948 tour. In 1948, he was pretty much a father figure. We all looked up to him and marvelled at his batsmanship. Here was a guy nearing forty, yet he ran about the field like a two-year-old and just kept making runs. If Bradman was ‘better’ in the 1930s, he must have been some player.

In December 1948, Bradman made the last of his 117 first-class centuries in what was called the ‘Bradman Testimonial Match’. Keith Miller told me of the game, where he decided to bowl a few short ones, ‘just to test his reflexes’.

‘First one was a medium-fast bouncer. It didn’t get up too far, but Don was swiftly into position and he smashed it like a rocket past mid-on,’ Miller recounted. ‘Fast bowlers don’t like that treatment, so I charged in for the next ball and gave it my all. It was a tremendous bumper, straight at his head, but he simply swung into position and cracked it forward of square, almost decapitating Sam Loxton on its way to the fence.’

Once, when Miller was sitting with a young Richie Benaud at the Adelaide Oval, Benaud said, ‘You know, Keith, I wish I had been given the chance to bowl to Don Bradman. I came into the side just too late.’ Miller coughed and replied, ‘Ahem, Richie my boy, your not having to bowl to Bradman was your luckiest break in cricket.’

Between 1948 and 1956, Miller and his fast-bowling mate Ray Lindwall formed an opening partnership which ranks with that of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald in the 1920s and Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in the 1970s.

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