Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

98 Achievement and Rejection in Western Australia Keith Carmody would never repeat the successes he’d enjoyed as captain and batsman in his first season in the West. But in its immediate aftermath he remained a local hero, a subject of national speculation about his Test prospects and, above all, an enterprising and energetic WACA coach. Congratulating him on his successful season in Western Australia and noting his club tally of 5,688 runs and 55 wickets since 1932/33, the Mosman Annual Report for 1947/48 added that ‘Peter Pearson’s sudden departure for Western Australia is also a great loss to the club. This season he bowled very well indeed. In all grade matches he obtained 282 wickets and he played several useful innings.’ Although Pearson’s hopes of breaking into first-class cricket in the West would never be realised – and he would return to Sydney after playing with some success for two years in Perth pennant cricket 42 – there can be no doubt that the arrival of his long-term Mosman friend, their association in Stalag Luft III duly noted in the Perth press, added to Keith’s pleasure in his new surroundings. For the time being Keith remained popular enough to be praised rather than vilified for ignoring local tradition when the departing Australian XI played the state team in mid-March 1948: he won the toss and batted on the Saturday. ‘Probably 14,000 of the 15,000 who were at the WACA ground,’ said The Western Mail , ‘went there in the hope of seeing the Australian Eleven – and Don Bradman in particular – at the wickets.’ But their disappointment ‘wasn’t Keith Carmody’s fault’. The Board of Control had failed to ensure the touring team arrived in Perth in time to start the match on the appointed day, Friday: ‘the wicket being good and the conditions ideal, Carmody followed the only possible course – he decided to bat.’ While it’s impossible to know Bradman’s reaction to this departure from tradition, it’s even more tantalising to wonder whether two other issues were in the minds of the two captains. It’s hard to imagine Keith didn’t mention, as he soon would in a public speech, the importance to him of the Goodwill Tour of 1933, playing with Bradman. While it’s very unlikely they would discuss Bradman’s failure to join so many cricketers in active war service, the older man had to be well aware of Keith’s RAAF role on the cricket field, in the air and as a PoW. Certainly, even 42 In his second season, Pearson’s 42 wickets for the Nedlands club at 15.09 put him in eighth place in the competition’s averages, one above University’s Ray Strauss, soon to be a renowned swing bowler for Western Australia.