Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

36 In the Air and on the Field with the RAAF Soon, however, the English press was criticising rather than lauding Carmody, leading a Dominions XI, which included the Test players Dempster and West Indians Learie Constantine, Manny Martindale and Bertie Clarke, against an England XI at Lord’s on 2 and 3 August. After the Bank Holiday proceedings began with introductions to the Duke of Gloucester, it was no disgrace to lose to a side that included such established and emerging notables as Harold Gimblett, Jack Robertson, the Compton brothers, Godfrey Evans, Les Ames, Alec Bedser and Walter Robins. But although Keith scored 43 and 49, The Times found fault with his captaincy. After Martindale dismissed Denis Compton for 17, Carmody ‘should surely have brought on Clarke or Constantine and remembered that Miller is a far finer bat than he is a bowler and that [Errol] Holmes likes the fast-medium ball coming onto the bat.’ Probably Carmody was already aware, as the whole cricket world was soon to discover, that Miller was emerging as a very fine bowler indeed. But there’s no denying that Holmes (45) and Robins (69) remained not out, allowing England to declare their second innings at 150 for six and set a total that enabled them to win by eight runs. Some 38,100 people had passed through the turnstiles over the two days. In August Carmody was captain in three drawn matches: an RAAF game against New Zealand Services at Maidstone and a Dominions XI in two matches against the RAF at Stanley Park, Blackpool, where neither he nor Miller made any great impact. In contrast to those inconsequential provincial games, the interest that the RAAF players had generated in London was confirmed when a large crowd gathered on 11 September for the last match of the season at Lord’s against a strong RAF XI. Joining Carmody, Sismey, Roper and Miller were a number of competent players: Jim Workman of South Australia, Wally Yeates (New South Wales), Ross (Victoria) and K.Campbell (Queensland). But none of these had first-class experience, while at this stage the credentials of the twelfth man, Ross Stanford – who would achieve greater fame than most, both on the cricket field and in the air – consisted of one first-class game, in which he’d scored nought for South Australia against Tasmania, while Bradman made 369. Now the latest Lord’s match was almost as big an anticlimax for batsman Carmody, dismissed for a duck by Alec Bedser. But The Times acknowledged ‘there could be no doubt’ he’d made the right decision in sending the opposition in to bat. After the RAF declared at 105 for nine, the Australians were in trouble at 28 for five but ‘thereafter the