Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

127 to discourage a faint-hearted captain from setting a defensive field. Apart from circles marked in the middle of the field there was nothing else to prove that a fertile imagination has gone to work on this field-placing rule. … Ever since the late Keith Carmody instituted the ‘Carmody field’ by cutting out the two traditional fieldsmen at third man and deep fine leg to bring the redundant boundary men close in to the bat, this idea was in operation. Yet, if the Carmody field was destined to live on, 60 it’s doubtful if the full range of Keith’s achievements, especially in Western Australia, were much in the minds of most who marked or mourned his death in his home city. Taking no account of the foundations his coaching had laid for Western Australia’s eventual ascendancy, David Lord believed that, with the chance to impart ‘priceless knowledge and experience’, he ‘blew it!’ In an interview twenty years later Bob Radford, legendary executive secretary of the New South Wales Cricket Association for almost 20 years, 61 told this writer that ‘of course’ Carmody had been instrumental in Western Australia’s achievements. But he provided no evidence that he was aware of Carmody’s priorities and methods and, ignoring the presence of the seven West Australians who filled the Test team in 1981/82 – and their likely inspirational value – he believed it was a mistake to play Test matches in Perth, so far away from their natural home in Sydney and Melbourne. 62 Radford’s (and perhaps Lord’s) New South Wales-centric bias had, however, long since been tempered by Charlie Price, who’d played 31 matches – many alongside Carmody – for the 1945/46 Services team. Writing to the Herald on 1 November 1977 from the Sydney beachside suburb of Dee Why, he paid tribute to a ‘first-class Australian, Keith Carmody … [who] served his country well in 60 Despite Jardine’s reference in 1954 to English respect for Carmody – and this writer’s memory of press excitement at the ‘Carmody field’ revealed early in the 1953 tour at Park Avenue, Bradford – Keith’s Wisden obituary ran to only five lines, rather less than given on the facing page to J.C.Colquhoun, who’d played just two modest first-class innings for Weigall’s XI at Oxford in 1914. 61 Amid all the contradictory messages about the extent of Carmody’s alcoholism it’s worth noting that the hugely influential Radford revelled in his own reputation as a drinker on an epic scale. Three years after I interviewed him he hired a Sydney Harbour ferry to entertain 200 friends because he regretted he would miss his own wake. He was equally famous for winning a wager that required vegan Greg Chappell to eat a steak if he lived past 60: he died a few months after reaching that milestone. Chappell ate the steak. 62 The seven, the most from one state ever to play together for Australia, were Bruce Laird, Graeme Wood, Kim Hughes, Rod Marsh, Bruce Yardley, Dennis Lillee and Terry Alderman. They were in the team when Australia won once and lost once against Pakistan and had one victory and one draw against West Indies. From Kalamunda to Sydney