One of Australia's best all-rounders ever, a distinguished wartime pilot and one of cricket's great personalities died at age 84 this morning.
Tributes and memories here please?
― Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Monday, 11 October 2004 07:21 (twenty-one years ago)
He got to see a statue of himself unvieled at the MCG last year. Quite the allround sportsman who was good at everything he tried - a natural. A great Australian.
RIP Keith Miller
My two favourite Miller stories which I hope were true.
When captaining NSW his method of field placing was a command to his team "ok you bastards, spread out."
The tale is told of a morning when Mr Miller had yet to appear at the ground shortly before the start of play. His teamates, aware that Keith had spent an 'enjoyable' previous evening felt that he was still recovering and took the field with the 12th man. Suddenly, looking full of life Keith appears.
"Sorry Skip" says one of the team "we appear to have 12 players."
Keith carefully confirms this then announces "ok, one of you bastards piss off!"
A couple of quotes from Keith:
"I'll tell you what pressure is. Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse. Playing cricket is not."
The late Keith Miller puts life in perspective
A journalist once accosted Keith Miller, wanting to know how he had just taken seven for 12 in a Sheffield Shield match against South Australia. "There's three reasons," Miller replied. "First, I bowled bloody well. Second, I, errr ... second ..." There was a pause. "You can forget about the other two reasons."
― chrisso (chrisso), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 01:14 (twenty-one years ago)
We might be telling two versions of the same story but apparently before he took that 7-12 he had been out all the previous night and when he was asked how he had bowled so well on no sleep he said something like, 'I knew I had to do something pretty much straight away, before I ran out of puff'.
― Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 01:21 (twenty-one years ago)