Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

20 Escape From Poverty Their patience was rewarded in 1937/38 when his season’s aggregate was 465. Again, his dismissals suggest that impulsive aggression might be a weakness: stumped twice, run out once, caught seven times, lbw twice and bowled only once. But he also made his first century, 106 not out in 116 minutes against Gordon, and had two scores in the 60s and one 50. His 31.90 gave him second place in the club’s averages. ‘Considering he opened the innings on practically every occasion this was a very fine performance,’ said the Mosman Annual Report. After batting at number nine in the first game, he’d opened in 13 of 16 innings. By October 1938 Keith’s brother Noel had joined him in the team. The captain was Gulliver and other players included Vic McCaffery, a batsman six months older who’d followed close behind Keith in his rise through the Mosman grades. The team manager was Keith Johnson, who would play a significant role during Keith’s most successful period as a first-class batsman, in India in 1945. While that association was still well in the future, by now the younger Keith was closing in on first-class selection. On 28 November 1938 he was twelfth man for New South Wales against Queensland in Brisbane, while McCaffery played his first Sheffield Shield match under the captaincy of McCabe. 10 Joining McCaffery in the New South Wales Colts team at the Sydney Cricket Ground [SCG] at the beginning of December, Keith impressed with 82 in the first innings of a victorious four-day match. More relevant to his immediate prospects was the performance of McCaffery, who more than matched Keith’s first innings with 139 in the second. A number of biographical fragments about Carmody refer to McCabe as his mentor. According to Mosman historian John Hiscox, he played that role with all young players at the club, not just Keith. Certainly, McCabe’s dashing strokeplay must have been inspirational. After his brilliant innings at the start of the Bodyline series his 189 in the Second Test on the 1935/36 tour of South Africa included a century in a session. His most famous innings came at Nottingham a few months before the start of the Australian 1938/39 season, when Bradman insisted his whole team witness batting they would never see equalled: 232 in four hours, the last 72 in 28 minutes. Even if the mentoring was no more than inspiring example, it must have been especially influential on Keith, now firmly established 10 Ron James, one of the ‘Bradman boys’ of 1933 – at 13, even younger than Keith – also made his debut in this match: he went on to average 40.34 in 45 first-class matches until 1950/51, mostly for New South Wales but playing the two immediate post-war seasons for South Australia.