Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

88 Australian leg of the tour. Oldfield’s appointment was ‘thought by the team to be a little ironic, as they had toured the UK, India and Ceylon without any such liaison: it was strange it should be thought necessary in the team’s own country’. Entirely unwelcome was news that matches against the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Tasmania had been added to the programme. Making the prospect of 28 playing days in their first 40 back in Australia especially offensive was the Board’s announcement it had arranged the schedule after consultation with Oldfield and Services’ representatives. The players were never consulted, said Sismey, and their requests for the arrangements to be reconsidered were met with ‘scathing and unfavourable responses from cricket officials and the Press’. As commandingofficer, Sismeyhad reason to resent the authorities’ disdain for the grievances of his weary team. As a husband, he was further frustrated by his inability to arrange an incoming voyage for his Scottish wife, a grievance that continued through March – when he berated the government for its contrasting willingness to expedite the visits of English rugby league and cricket teams – until the end of May, when he was reportedly the first among hordes of Australian husbands rushing aboard ship to greet the first cargo of British war brides. Long before that happy moment the Board’s only response to his complaints was to eliminate the ACT match and reduce the others to three days, with any lost time carried over to a fourth. But accompanying this readjustment was official insistence that the players’ criticisms were unwarranted and press commentary suggesting they were claiming undeserved privileges: ‘other members of the services, not in the happy position of being cricketers, were still in uniform overseas with no idea of when they would return to Australia … cricketers generally will hope for more concentration on the game, rather than a succession of complaints’, quoted Sismey. The Perth press was more sympathetic. The players were likely to ‘bat like Bradmans and bowl like demons … because they are anxious to get the game over quickly and return to wives and babies’, reported an unnamed woman journalist for the local Sunday Times on the eve of the first match . When the game against Western Australia started – only to be quickly disrupted by rain almost unprecedented on a Perth Christmas Day – reporters stressed the wear and tear suffered over the previous months: ‘Miller was unable to bowl fast as his boots were held together The Victory ‘Tests’ and the Long Road Home