Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

114 Achievement and Rejection in Western Australia testimonial match in Melbourne, he ‘was interested to see Keith Carmody in action. Probably few Australians,’ he told the press in Fremantle, ‘realised the awe created by the close placing of a field to take wickets – irrespective of saving runs – which was associated with Carmody’s name in England.’ Ian Johnson, captain on the Ashes tour two years later, was one Australian who had no doubt about the importance of both the tactic and its inventor: When you talk to Carmody you become absorbed by the tremendous enthusiasm and zest he has for cricket. He is one of Australia’s keenest cricket students, and has created an everlasting memorial to himself with the umbrella field he originated. This strategy has been criticised, but the fact that every first-class captain uses it is ample proof of its effectiveness. Although, according to Edwards, Carmody first deployed the eye- catching array of slips without prior discussion with his team, there was little criticism from within. Lawrie Sawle, a relatively late inclusion in the mid-1950s – and 35 and more years later a respected chairman of the national selectors – remarked that the tactic had its critics but with good bowlers ‘it picked up more wickets than with normal fields’. Carmody had nobody with the pace of a Lindwall, Miller, Tyson or Trueman. But he had some useful fast-medium bowlers in addition to Puckett, including Harry Price and Harry Gorringe – who each had one especially notable match 53 – and Peter Dunn. As a batsman and slow left-arm bowler, Wally Langdon sometimes resented the fast bowlers’ leakage of runs through the slips to unguarded third-man and fine-leg boundaries. But even he conceded that Carmody had ‘many good ideas’, including the umbrella field. His comment was notable because he ‘never got on with Carmody’ from the time he was a rejected applicant for his wartime RAAF side. He also claimed that Carmody had felt similar resentment when excluded from the Bradman testimonial match in 1949 for which Langdon was picked. Although these comments were made in an interview in 1996, the discerning press and public were well aware of tensions between the two. 53 Harry Price’s best performance was five wickets in each innings in the same match in which Edwards made two centuries against Victoria. ‘Gorringe’s Game’ was against Queensland in Perth in the 1952/53 season: he began the second innings by taking four for none with the new ball, then conceded some 50 runs before taking the last four also for no runs.