Famous Cricketers No 70 - Keith Miller

Keith Ross Miller Keith Ross Miller was born on 28th November 1919 at No.29, Benjamin Street, Melbourne. He was the third son, and fourth child of Mr and Mrs Leslie Miller and was taught the rudiments of cricket by his father using a soft ball to encourage his son to get behind the line of the ball without the fear of being hit. His early cricket was played with his father and his two elder brothers, Leslie and Ray, who both went on to become good club cricketers. Miller’s education started at Elsternick State School where he developed his game on the school playing fields. An early hero was the Victorian and Australian opener Bill Ponsford who lived only a quarter of a mile from the Miller home. Keith would often go past Ponsford’s house in the hope of catching a glimpse of his hero. In 1934 Miller went to Melbourne High School where one of the teachers was the Australian cricket captain, Bill Woodfull. He was a good enough player to play for the school first team whilst only a third-former and soon established a reputation as a determined, reliable batsman. By 1936 he was opening the innings for the school. Miller joined Elsternick Cricket Club where he received advice and encouragement from the Victorian player, E.V.Carroll, who, at the time, was coach to the South Melbourne grade cricket club. Carroll recommended him to South Melbourne and Miller was soon playing for their first team alongside his future Australian captain, Lindsay Hassett. One notable performance came in a match against Carlton, captained by Woodfull. South Melbourne had lost half their wickets for just six runs before Miller came to the rescue with an innings of 61 not out. The next day Woodfull presented him with an engraved egg-shaped cup in recognition of his “sterling performance”. Between the ages of sixteen and seventeen Miller gained more than a foot in height and began to establish his cricket reputation. In February 1938 he made his debut in the Victorian State side in a match against Tasmania, one of seven players making their debut in this non-Shield fixture. He scored 181 runs in 289 minutes but did not appear again for Victoria until December 1938 when he played in four non-Shield games, away to Tasmania and Western Australia. His highest score in seven innings was 55 but he had made enough of an impression to gain promotion to Victoria’s Sheffield Shield team for the 1939/40 season. In Miller’s first Shield match against South Australia he was opposed by two legends of Australian cricket, Don Bradman and Clarrie Grimmett. Grimmett clean bowled him for seven, playing back but Miller learnt his lesson from this. Playing forward consistently in the return match he hit his first Shield century, 108. Bradman was impressed as was Clem Hill who prophesied that Miller would one day bat for Australia. Of his ten dismissals that Shield season six were by spin bowlers including two dismissals for low scores by Bill O’Reilly playing for New South Wales. Altogether he scored 298 runs at an average of 29.80 and the Australian correspondent of The Cricketer described him as “a tallish young stylist who jumps into the ball confidently. In his backfoot cover strokes he seems merely to brush the ball away to get boundaries.” To this time, Miller had been purely a batsman. Although Victoria at times used up to seven bowlers, he had bowled just one over for three runs against South Australia. This started to change in 1940 when he played in a wartime benefit game for Stan McCabe’s XI against Don Bradman’s XI at Melbourne. Both opening bowlers were injured and Miller’s captain, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to bowl. He took the wicket of Ken Ridings and then had Bradman, himself, dropped by O’Reilly at slip. With serious cricket suspended for the duration of the war Miller indulged in his other great sporting love - Australian Rules Football, playing for the St Kilda Club as well as in inter-state matches for 3