Keith Miller With The Australian Cricket Team in England in 1948 - Fourth Test

Fourth Test

The teams moved to Headingley for the Fourth Test at Leeds. Hutton was recalled and the home team won the toss and batted first. England tallied 496, its highest score of the series. Miller took the last wicket of Yardley to finish with 1/43. Generally unthreatening throughout the innings, he bowled only 17.1 overs; the other frontline bowlers sent down at least 33 each. The innings started badly for Miller. He bowled below his full pace and his opening over yielded three full tosses. In Miller’s first over, Hutton scored the first boundary of the day, driving past mid-off. He felt his legs for muscle strains, and after two overs that O’Reilly described as "very innocuous", Miller was taken off. Nursing fitness concerns, Miller was forced to bowl medium-paced off breaks on the second day as England proceeded to 2/423 and appeared to be in complete control, before losing 8/73. In reply, Australia was struggling at 3/68 on the third morning. Neil Harvey—playing his first Ashes Test—joined Miller at the crease. Both had walked out in the same over, as Pollard removed Bradman and Hassett in the space of three balls. Australia was more than 400 behind, and if England were to remove the pair quickly, they would expose Australia's lower order and give themselves an opportunity to win by taking a hefty first innings lead. Harvey asked his senior partner "What’s going on here, eh? Let's get stuck into 'em". The pair launched a counterattack, with Miller taking the lead. He hoisted Laker's first ball over square leg for six. Miller shielded the left-handed Harvey from Laker, as his partner was struggling against the off breaks that were turning away from him, especially one that spun, bounced, and beat his outside edge. The all rounder drilled one off-drive from Laker for four, and after mis-hitting the next to the amusement of the crowd, struck the off spinner flat over his head, almost for six into the sightscreen. This allowed Australia to seize the initiative, and Harvey joined in during the next over. The left-hander hit consecutive boundaries against Laker, the second of which almost cleared the playing area. He followed this with another boundary to reach 44. Miller then lifted Laker for a six over long off, hitting a spectator in the head, and another over long on from Yardley's bowling to move from 42 to 54. He drove the next ball through cover for four. Yardley responded by stacking his leg side with outfielders and bowling outside leg stump, challenging Miller to another hit for six. The batsman obliged, but edged the ball onto wicket-keeper Evans' head; Edrich dived forward and caught the ball on the rebound at short fine leg. The crowd was in raptures at both the batting and Edrich's catch.

The partnership had yielded 121 runs in only 90 minutes, and Wisden likened it to a "hurricane". Cricket commentator John Arlott described the innings as the most memorable that he had witnessed. He said "Miller played like an emperor...Every stroke would have been memorable but each one had bettered its predecessor", saying that his batting had raised cricket "to a point of aesthetic beauty". Fingleton said that he had never "known a more enjoyable hour" of "delectable cricket". He acclaimed Miller's innings as "one of the rarest gems in the Test collection of all time" and "a moment to live in the cricket memory". O'Reilly said that Miller and Harvey had counter-attacked with "such joyful abandon that it would have been difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to gather from their methods of going about it that they were actually retrieving a tremendously difficult situation".

The momentum swung in Australia's favour. Harvey scored 112, while Loxton made 93, hitting a further five sixes from Laker. Lindwall added 77 late in the afternoon as Australia finished at 9/457 on the fourth day, having added 394 in one day's play. At the start of the second innings, Miller bowled a tight opening spell and the English openers scored only five from his six overs as they tried to establish a solid start. Miller took 1/53 in the second innings, removing Bedser and catching Compton yet again as Australia was set a world record chase of 404 on the final day in just 345 minutes. A 301-run second wicket partnership between Morris and Bradman set up the run-chase and Miller came in with the score at 2/358. He made only 12 but Australia won by seven wickets to set a new world record and take a 3–0 series lead.

The day after the Test, the Australians moved onto their next match against Derbyshire, where Miller scored 57 and took 3/31 in the first innings. He took the first two wickets to reduce the hosts to 2/26 before they recovered to 240 in reply to Australia’s 361. In the second innings he bowled only two overs as Australia won by an innings. In a rain-affected draw against Glamorgan, Miller took 2/41 in the hosts' first innings of 197 before compiling a hard-hitting 84. Coming in to join Hassett with the score at 2/67, he struck five sixes and seven fours. He hit one of the sixes with one hand, sending it 20 rows into the crowd. Taking his bottom hand off the bat, he had effectively played a left-handed tennis-style backhand, This sent the ball from Allan Watkins off his pads into the fine leg region. Miller then attacked the local captain Wilf Wooller, hitting him over the sightscreen with straight drives from consecutive balls and lofting a third six over long off. He was finally dismissed while attempting another six; Australia's first innings was washed out at 3/215.

Miller was rested for the nine-wicket win against Warwickshire. He returned against Lancashire. On the final day, Lancashire batsman Jack Ikin had reached 99 after being repeatedly hit by bouncers. Bradman took the new ball and gave it to Miller, who refused to bowl, saying that he felt Ikin deserved a century. The Australian skipper gave the ball to Lindwall, who promptly removed Ikin for 99. Miller had a light workload for the match, scoring 24 and 11, and taking a total of 1/32 from 16 overs. In the next game, he came in with Australia in difficulty at 5/133, and scored 55 in faster than even time against Durham in the last match before the Fifth Test. The match was a two day fixture that was not given first-class status. Miller took 1/17 as the hosts fell to 5/73 in reply to Australia's 282 when rain ended the match at the end of the opening day.