Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

99 as the match was under way, there were glimpses in the press that hostility to the Services’ XI remained a factor in the internal politics of Australian cricket. Despite recent newspaper speculation in both Australia and England that Carmody might be considered for Bradman’s 1948 team, a more realistic assessment appeared in the unlikely columns of the Centralian Advocate on 19 March . Remote though it was from the nerve centre of Australian cricket, the Alice Springs journal was confident ‘the antipathy of some cricketers towards the Services’ XI was well-known, with the result that the side was broken up.’ Stan Sismey, Dick Whitington and Albert Cheetham had ‘gone by the board’ and Jack Pettiford was about to follow Cec Pepper, who had already joined the Lancashire League: Miller and Hassett could not be denied a place in the Australian side. But what became of Carmody? He captained the Sheffield Shield side for W.A. this year and won the Shield handsomely. For the first time in history the winning Shield side had not been represented in Australia’s Test team. It’s unlikely Keith allowed such speculation to distract him from his major priority as state coach. Despite the success of the first Shield season, he knew that Western Australia lacked the reservoir of talent in his native New South Wales. His priority was to deepen the pool in his new state. He began in earnest in the Australian winter of 1948, while Bradman’s team were becoming Invincibles in England. * * * * * * * At the time of his appointment the WACA had already drawn up a coaching plan focused on Perth. Even during the first Shield season Keith arranged matches at the WACA ground between local schoolboys. In August 1948 he invited boys from over 80 schools to attend two weeks of lectures and net practice at the facilities in Boans department store, in the hope that ‘in four or five years the State team will include several players under the age of 20’. Yet by this time his New South Wales experience had prompted a significant innovation outside the WACA’s brief, concentrating on youthful country players. ‘After all,’ he told The Western Mail , Bradman was a country boy and so was O’Reilly, who Bradman considers to be the greatest Australian bowler of all time. Who knows what we are destined to find in our own country centres in the next few years? Now that W.A. is in the Sheffield Shield Achievement and Rejection in Western Australia