Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

84 The Victory ‘Tests’ and the Long Road Home of the combined military headquarters for South-East Asia Command. According to writer Perry, the prevalence of illness with food poisoning and dysentery among the players, combined with the fatigue of rail travel, made some RAAF men threaten to abandon the tour or replace the Army’s Hassett with either Carmody or Miller as captain. Sismey’s manuscript makes no mention of such dissension nor of Mark Rowe’s suggestion that Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia, came to their rescue. Thanks to intervention by sympathetic senior RAF personnel already known to Sismey, Air Commodore Jarman, in charge of air transport for South-East Asia, provided the Australians with aircraft for the remainder of their travel in India, as well as the journey home via one match in Ceylon. After a flight to Bombay a ‘magnificent’ 168 from West Zone’s opener, R.S.Modi, and a stylish 77 from captain V.M.Merchant set the tone for yet another draw, at Brabourne Stadium. Merchant – regarded by Indians, said Sismey, as ‘sheer Ponsford’ – also captained the Indian representative team, who began the first of three four-day unofficial ‘Tests’ at the same venue on 10 November. By this stage, on the good wickets that had produced only draws, Hassett had matched the Indians’ batting, with 73 against North Zone and 187 and 124 not out against the Princes’ XI. Miller had scored 46 at Lahore and 106 in the Bombay match. In the first two matches Carmody had made 25, 11 and 58. While those scores, followed by 43 and 41 at Brabourne Stadium, were uncomfortably similar to his best in the recent English season, he was picked to open in the first ‘Test’. He immediately justified his inclusion with his first first-class century. ‘Keith Carmody, with his dashing 113,’ reported Marien, ‘was the cavalier of the first day’s play’. Sismey described his innings and those of Pettiford (124) and Pepper (95) as ‘magnificent’ in the first-innings total of 531, the highest the Australians would achieve on the tour. The start of the second day, 11 November, was marred by a jeering crowd impatient for play to begin and unaware why the players were standing for two minutes’ silence in memory of a European war. But in his subsequent recollection Sismey was keener to denounce his opponents for ‘stalling tactics’ that ruined a match attracting a total attendance over 120,000. Another draw in a two-day match against Combined Indian Universities in Poona at least offered relief from Bombay’s oppressive humidity: its ‘picnic atmosphere’ doubtless seemed