MELBOURNE, Oct 20: Australia captain Ricky Ponting and former skippers Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry, Ian Chappell and Steve Waugh were among mourners at the funeral of one of Australia's favourite cricketers Keith Miller.

"Miller's name will live as long as cricket exists," Benaud told the one thousand mourners at Melbourne's St Paul's cathedral on Wednesday.

A former World War Two bomber pilot who survived a crash landing, Melbourne-born Miller went on to play in Don Bradman's 1948 Ashes-winning "Invincibles".

Tall and handsome, Miller took 170 wickets and scored 2,958 runs in 55 tests. The Australian helped rejuvenate Test cricket after World War Two before eventually retiring in 1956.

"He was a cricketer every boy wanted to be like," local television personality Tony Charlton said in the main eulogy.

John Bradman, son of Don, told mourners Miller was a close and special family friend. "He was wonderfully supportive when my dad died (in 2001)," said John Bradman.

"My dad said Keith was Australia's greatest all-round cricketer. My father told me that he never had a more loyal supporter than Keith Miller."

Showing a disregard for convention and a flair for storytelling, Miller famously described cricket as just a game. He said real pressure was having a German fighter plane on your tail.

"They both played cricket for the sheer love of it and they were both deeply modest," John Bradman said of Miller and his father.

Chappell told mourners: "I had the rare pleasure of having a boyhood idol who lived up to my lofty expectations."

Miller also spent time working as a newspaper journalist in England and loved horse racing. He named one of his four sons after his England cricket rival and long-time friend, Denis Compton.

Actor Peter O'Toole and the reclusive US billionaire Paul Getty, who died in London last year, were among Miller's friends.-Reuters