Cricket Witness No 3 - The Daffodil Blooms

104 The summer of 1948 Despite Bradman’s absence for the match in 1948, the St. Helen’s ground was teeming with more than 20,000 spectators and, remarkably given the morning rain, they had some cricket to enjoy: the spectacle of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller, if not quite in full flight across the sodden grass, but hostile enough to dismiss Glamorgan for 197. Further rain throughout Sunday did not deter an even bigger audience – estimated around 27,000 – from attending the second day’s play when they were entertained by Miller’s merry 84, decorated with five huge sixes and seven fours before, at three o’clock, the rain returned - this time for good. It duly washed out the rest of the day and all of the third. For some Glamorgan followers, the sense of anti-climax mingled with resentment. ‘Old and Aged Member’ waddled home to his desk, took up his pen and wrote, as follows, to the South Wales Evening Post : “Sir, There have been complaints about the manifold instructions to, and treatment of, members in the Glamorgan v Australia match and that the complaints were, and are, entirely justified as may be proved from what was seen on the balcony and elsewhere on Saturday. Old and aged members were denied use of the balcony, but a very prominent official of Glamorgan found places for his wife and three sons; there were other boys there too, and persons who never appear on “ordinary” occasions. Johnnie Clay bowling during Glamorgan’s match against Surrey at the Arms Park.