Remembering Keith Miller:
Today is the 15th death anniversary of Keith Miller (28th Nov 1919 to 11th Oct 2004).  He was the first great all-rounder in cricket, and a  trail-blazer for later all-rounders like Kapil Dev, Gary Sobers, Ian Botham, Imran Khan,  Richard Hadlee, Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis and many others. 

Keith Miller is regarded as Australia's greatest ever all-rounder. Because of his ability, irreverent manner and good looks he was a crowd favourite. In 55 tests, Miller scored 2958 runs as a right-handed batsman  at an average of 36.97, with 7 hundreds and 13 fifties. As a right-arm fast bowler, he took 170 wickets at an average of 22.97. This included seven  five-wicket hauls and one ten-wicket haul.

He is probably best remembered for his new-ball partnership with Ray Lindwall, but it was as a classical batsman that he first made his mark: a photograph of Miller executkng a textbook square-drive adorned the desk of the cricket-loving Australian prime minister Robert Menzies for many years. 

Miller was a member of the Don Bradman's Invincibles team. At the time of his retirement from Test cricket in 1956, Miller had the best statistics of any all-rounder in cricket history. This status was reflected when Miller was made one of the ten inaugural members of the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame.

Miller's personality – love of the contest, rather than victory, and his larger-than-life rebelliousness and carousing – helped both shape and limit his cricketing career, as he stood for the exact opposite of the more puritanical values of Donald Bradman, his captain and later national selector. Due to this, Miller never did captain Australia, although he was a born leader.

Keith Milller was a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War II. In 1945, he toured India as part of the Australian  Services Team.  The team was  playing East Zone in Calcutta when the city was in the grip of deadly pro-independence riots. Miller's great  friend Denis Compton was batting for East Zone when rioters invaded the pitch, to stop the game. Their leader ran up to Compton and said: "Mr Compton, you're a  very good player, but you must stop". In later years, whenever Miller played against  Compton, he would greet Compton with this remark when Compton came to the crease!  In 2005, the Engladnd Cricket Board and Cricket Australia decided that the player adjudged the Player of the Series in the Ashes would be awarded the Compton–Miller Medal, recognising their friendship and rivalry. 


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