IN King Arthur’s Camelot, Keith Miller would almost certainly have been a knight, if not Sir Galahad. Chivalry is a word that comes to mind when I think of one of cricket’s most charismatic characters, though Denis Compton, his best friend would not have agreed.
Keith Miller had felled Denis Compton with a bouncer and he had to be rushed to hospital. Remember that is in those days batsmen did not wear helmets. Denis Compton returned to resume his innings, his head bandaged up and Keith Miller greeted him with a bouncer. That evening, they went out together to paint the town red and down a few beers. Keith Miller gave me his version and Denis Compton his. There was no difference but what came through both the versions was mutual respect and affection.
I first heard the name Keith Miller mentioned when Lindsay Hassett brought an Australian Services XI to India in 1945, or it could have been 1946. Keith Miller was one of the stars of that team though I best remember the first match that the team played which was against a Universities XI at Lahore. Two local lads scored centuries, one was an Imtiaz Ahmed and the other, an Abdul Hafeez as he was called then but we would later know him as Abdul Hafeez Kardar. I went to see this team play when it came to Bombay but Keith Miller did not play. It was quite possible that he may gone to Mahalakshmi, the race-course. As I would learn later, horse-racing was one of his passions as was classical music and he would stand at first slip, humming some Beethoven symphony.
He did play for Australia in 1946 when Test cricket was resumed after World War II and England led by Wally Hammond toured Australia. This was the first pairing of Lindwall and Miller and in cricket it would become as famous as the business partnership of Rolls and Royce. Soon after, I left for the United States and I put cricket on a back-burner and was completely unaware of the feats of Bradman’s 1948 team. Some call it Bradman’s revenge for the Bodyline Series for he turned Lindwall and Miller loose and they ran amuck. It was when I got to England in 1951-52 that I was able to catch up with what had been happening in the cricket world and the name Keith Miller was on everyone’s lips. He was the new poster-boy, the Australian with film-star looks and the world’s best all-rounder by a mile. People went in droves to see Keith Miller bat, they went in the same numbers to see him bowl and a few may have gone just to get a sight of him on a cricket field.
Keith Miller came to Pakistan in 1956 to play a solitary Test against Pakistan, as a member of Ian Johnson’s team that had been badly bruised by England and were on their way home. Fazal Mahmood routed Australia and I exchanged my first words with Keith Miller when I asked him what he thought of Fazal Mahmood. He said that it was like facing Alec Bedser on a green-top. The match had been played on matting but he made no excuses. “We were beaten fair and square,” he told me. I made a mental note. It was refreshing to hear someone, particularly an Australian, accept defeat so graciously.
He came to Karachi again to play in a benefit match that the KCA had arranged for one of its loyal lieutenants. Mustaq Ali had also been invited. Kardar had made a special point and asked me to look after Keith Miller and I remember his words: “He’s a great friend of Pakistan cricket.”
I invited him to lunch at the Karachi Gymkhana and as in the final lines of the film Casablanca, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He was such an easygoing person, he seemed oblivious to his celebrity and wanted to talk about others and not himself. Keith Miller was not in awe of Keith Miller! I asked him about Bradman. He was not irreverent but neither was he reverent, like a Graham Greene man of the cloth, not without his sins. I think Keith Miller was a free spirit, too much of an individualist for Bradman’s liking. Bradman was a moralist and this made him something of a bully, albeit a benign bully.
On the 1948 tour, Australia in their match against Essex, piled up a score in excess of 700 but Keith Miller had been bowled first ball to what had looked like a reckless shot. Upbraided by Bradman, he was reported to have said that that was not the way he played cricket. He made an interesting observation about Hanif Mohammad. He was not sure whether he should be opening the innings. “You don’t want the innings to get bogged down,” he said. Remarkable how ahead of his times he was and this was precisely what I had in mind in 1974 when I persuaded Majid Khan to open the innings in the Lord’s Test.
In 1962, I was invited by the BBC to be the guest commentator for Test Match Special. Pakistan was touring England. At Lord’s the broadcasting booth and the press box were in the same media centre, atop the Warner’s Stand. When I arrived I found Keith Miller holding court. I was not certain whether he would recognize me but he did more than that. He picked me up and propped me on the bar. The greeting was a bit physical but it was the warmest I have ever received. He then delivered the most encouraging words I have ever got as a cricket commentator: “I’ve been listening to you and you are better than all the others,” he said. Suddenly, I felt ten feet tall. Keith Miller spent his summers in England and he covered cricket for The Daily Express. But this interfered with his pursuit of horse-racing. So he would take a transistor radio to the tracks, listened to the commentary as he followed the horses and then phoned in his match report.
It became a routine. Working for PIA, I managed to find some urgent work in London that coincided with the Lord’s Test and Keith Miller would be there, like an evangelist surrounded by his devotees. Always, a warm greeting awaited me, always his generosity, he played host in a country where he was a guest.
In the 1970’s, I went to Australia with our squash team for the Australian Open which was being played in Adelaide. Keith Miller was in Sydney. I telephoned him. “Where the hell are you?” he asked. I told him that I was in Adelaide. “Is there anything I can do for you, is there anything you want?” I told him I was alright. During my stay in Adelaide, he would telephone me regularly, always asking whether I needed anything.
When Greg Chappell’s Australians toured Pakistan, PTV invited him as a guest expert for the Lahore Test and I have never enjoyed cricket commentary more. In 1987, I caught up with him again when Pakistan toured England. He invited me to lunch at a club in the Marble Arch area. The club was called The Cricketer. He had also invited Denis Compton and Colin Ingleby Mackenzie. The lunch started at about noon and it carried on till it was almost tea-time. I was the outsider and did most of the listening but what a great time I had. Anecdotes were hauled up, memories dusted up, the universe rolled back and yesteryears re-lived.
I have had the good fortune to have known many decent people in my life and these friendships have had a profound influence on my system of values. Would Keith Miller have been the same man had he not been a star cricketer? I can’t say but one thing is certain. I would not have got to know him and to be able to call Keith Miller a friend, a member of an elite club. What have I got out of cricket? Keith Miller’s friendship for starters.
