The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
I’m pretty sure that if Keith Miller is mentioned often enough in any thread, I just automatically manifest. Though this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a bloke who frequently took the new ball and batted in the top 5 referred to as a bits and pieces player! 
I should probably just go back through my old posts and copy/paste, because I’m unlikely to write anything now that I’ve not written before…
There’s no question that, relative to his immense talent, Miller under-achieved with the bat at Test level. That’s not to say he was poor – he has a good record and played some fantastic innings – but anyone who saw Miller in England in 1945 was sure they were watching the dawn of one of the all-time great batsmen. He was brilliant in the Victory Tests, and then playing for a Dominions XI at Lord’s later in the summer made 185 in 165 minutes in what is still considered one of the greatest innings ever played there.
At the time, he was very much a batsman with his bowling considered a surprising bonus, but of course as the years went on and bowling took on a greater role for him, it almost inevitably took the edge off his batting.
It was often said that he didn’t make runs if they weren’t needed and could have averaged more. While there is truth to that – his outlook on life and experience in the war meant that he took no pleasure in one-sided slaughters and there is of course that famous example in 1948 where Australia racked up 721 in a day and he allowed himself to be bowled first ball, saying “thank God that’s over” – I think that is also a little overstated. Miller made many valuable runs, but there were also plenty of occasions where the team was in trouble and he could have risen to the heights at crisis time, but didn’t. There’s also the Test to FC discrepancy – he hit seven FC double tons and averaged nearly 50, but his Test average was 37 with a top score of 147, which to me indicates the step up in quality too. That’s not meant to sound harsh, it’s just that even as a Miller fan-boy I don’t think he just gets a free pass for not averaging more.
Another thing to consider is where Miller batted. In any of the ATG exercises he gets picked to bat at 6 as the all-rounder, and yet he batted at number 6 just three times in 87 innings! Most of his career was spent at number 5, and when he wasn’t batting there he was at 3 or 4. It can’t have been easy playing as a bona fide top-order batsman and also a frontline fast bowler, and it must surely have had an impact too.
I should probably just go back through my old posts and copy/paste, because I’m unlikely to write anything now that I’ve not written before…
There’s no question that, relative to his immense talent, Miller under-achieved with the bat at Test level. That’s not to say he was poor – he has a good record and played some fantastic innings – but anyone who saw Miller in England in 1945 was sure they were watching the dawn of one of the all-time great batsmen. He was brilliant in the Victory Tests, and then playing for a Dominions XI at Lord’s later in the summer made 185 in 165 minutes in what is still considered one of the greatest innings ever played there.
At the time, he was very much a batsman with his bowling considered a surprising bonus, but of course as the years went on and bowling took on a greater role for him, it almost inevitably took the edge off his batting.
It was often said that he didn’t make runs if they weren’t needed and could have averaged more. While there is truth to that – his outlook on life and experience in the war meant that he took no pleasure in one-sided slaughters and there is of course that famous example in 1948 where Australia racked up 721 in a day and he allowed himself to be bowled first ball, saying “thank God that’s over” – I think that is also a little overstated. Miller made many valuable runs, but there were also plenty of occasions where the team was in trouble and he could have risen to the heights at crisis time, but didn’t. There’s also the Test to FC discrepancy – he hit seven FC double tons and averaged nearly 50, but his Test average was 37 with a top score of 147, which to me indicates the step up in quality too. That’s not meant to sound harsh, it’s just that even as a Miller fan-boy I don’t think he just gets a free pass for not averaging more.
Another thing to consider is where Miller batted. In any of the ATG exercises he gets picked to bat at 6 as the all-rounder, and yet he batted at number 6 just three times in 87 innings! Most of his career was spent at number 5, and when he wasn’t batting there he was at 3 or 4. It can’t have been easy playing as a bona fide top-order batsman and also a frontline fast bowler, and it must surely have had an impact too.
). I did a study a number of years ago on applying Man of the Match awards retrospectively from the very first Test match (which I was going to post here but I think it was during one of my long absences from the forum), and calculated that Miller would have been Man of the Match in seven of his 55 Tests, which is a very high ratio. For comparison, Botham was MoM 11 times in 102 Tests, Kapil Dev nine in 131.
