Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

16 Escape From Poverty strains of ‘Advance Australia Fair’, not ‘God Save the King’ – on 4 September 1933 included Bradman and Stan McCabe, each leading a team of young cricketers, chosen from the Palmer coaching sessions, to play three exhibition games. The Test batsmen did more than lend their names to the teams. Bradman proved as willing to thrash teenage bowling in Australia, as he had been to plunder 3,779 runs at 102.13, with 18 centuries, in 51 games in North America. Now his 83 in 30 minutes, including three sixes and 14 fours, brought easy victory for his team. Since no other batsman, including McCabe, figured in the reports of the only game covered by the press, it’s impossible to evaluate other performances. But undoubtedly this tour and association with Bradman in the Palmer programme were significant in the emerging cricket career of Keith Carmody. 9 In a shoebox full of unsorted photographs belonging to Keith’s daughter Jill are two significant items: a photograph of ‘Bradman’s boys’, standing in one long row, all immaculately clad in striped blazers and caps; and a postcard of the two Test players in street clothes. Keith’s handwritten note on the back of the latter picture is also a reminder that his heroes were still very young men: September 1933: Stanley Joseph McCabe, Born 16 July 1910 & Donald George Bradman, Born 27 August 1908. Taken at the Basin, Hawkesbury River, 1933 (‘Goodwill Tour’) Some 26 years later, at the height of his influence and popularity, Keith told a West Australian audience that he ‘once had a unique opportunity to closely study Bradman and availed himself of it.’ At the age of 14 he’d been coached by Bradman and batted with him on three occasions, playing for his team against McCabe’s. Where Bradman struggled in the Bodyline series – despite heading the Australian averages with a paltry 56.57 and top score of 103 not out – McCabe played one of his greatest innings, 187 in four hours, featuring audacious hooks and pulls. In the years ahead this Mosman star played a much larger role in Keith’s cricket development than Bradman, whose paranoia about publicity and search for financial security soon saw him move to Adelaide. But in the immediate future the teenager made an impact in schools’ and other junior representative teams. In three matches in the PSAAA carnival in January 1934 Keith scored 59, 59 and 57 and took three for 47 and four for 77 in two of them. A few days later he was Mosman’s top scorer with 40 in the Poidevin-Gray 9 Others playing in these matches who went on to futures in first-class cricket were Jock Livingston and Ron James.