Keith Johnson (cricket administrator)
The 1948 Australian cricket team earned the sobriquet The Invincibles by being the first side to complete a tour of England without losing a single match.
In 1948, Johnson managed the Australian tour of England, which again brought record profits and attendances, in spite of Australia's overwhelming dominance.
[2] He later moved to the north shore suburb of Mosman, where he worked as a mechanic before serving briefly in the 3rd Field Company Army Engineers.
[3] On 8 October 1916, in the middle of World War I, Johnson enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force as a gunner in the 5th Field Artillery Brigade.
[4] He had attended the annual general meeting in September 1934 as a proxy for Billy Bull, who was travelling back to Australia with the national team, which had been touring England.
[2] Johnson rose to the rank of flight lieutenant and was deployed to London,[4] where he did public relations work at the RAAF's overseas headquarters.
[2][6] In June 1945, he was appointed as manager of the Australian Services cricket team on its tour of Britain for the Victory Tests, India and Australia from mid-1945 to early-1946.
"[8] The almanack reprinted Johnson's message of thanks to the English cricket community in full before the team sailed to India.
The last pre-war series between England and Australia in 1938 had been an attritional and hard-nosed contest, but in the afterglow of the war victory, the cricketers played flamboyantly with abandon in front of packed crowds.
The attractive, attacking style of play was widely praised by commentators and the match raised £1,935 for war relief charities.
[11][12] England then levelled the series by winning the Second Victory Test at Bramall Lane, Sheffield with a hard-fought battle, by 41 runs.
[16] Due to the unexpectedly strong success of the Victory Tests, the government of Australia, acting on the impetus of Foreign Minister H.V.
The team—mostly made up of RAAF personnel—had been ill with food poisoning and dysentery, and travelled across the Indian subcontinent by long train journeys.
As the military men played poorly in Australia, the national selectors concluded that their achievements against England must have been against weak opposition,[28] and only Hassett and Miller were selected for the Australian tour of New Zealand.
"Indebtedness for the smooth running of the tour and general harmony of the team was due largely to the manager, Mr Keith Johnson, hard-working and always genial," it said.
[38] On the journey back to Australia, the players presented Johnson with a silver Georgian salver, with their signatures engraved on the memento.
[38] In a "farewell message" to England quoted in Wisden, Johnson said that the "most lasting memory" would be the team's visit to Balmoral Castle.
[41] During the 1948 tour, Barnes organised a multitude of business deals while not playing cricket,[40] and avoided paying customs duties on the enormous amount of goods he acquired in Britain by disembarking at Melbourne instead of Sydney.
[42] Barnes then made himself unavailable for first-class cricket, preferring to pursue business interests instead, and ridiculed the fee paid for the 1949–50 tour of South Africa.
[40] However, in 1951–52, Barnes made a return to cricket, and sought selection in the national team to play the West Indies during the 1951–52 Australian season.
[40] Barnes was duly selected for the Third Test by a panel of three, chaired by his former captain Bradman, but the choice was vetoed by the Australian Board of Control "for reasons outside of cricket".
It accused Barnes of allowing young spectators to enter the playing arena to field the ball instead of doing so himself, and of denigrating umpires by cupping his hands over his eyes and showing dissent by implying that they were blind.
[40] Barnes continued to score heavily, and during one match, he crossed paths with Johnson, who reportedly apologised to him for the exclusion from the team.
[51] Johnson agreed that his written report of the 1948 tour had said that the team had behaved "in a manner befitting worthy representatives of Australia" and that "on and off the field their conduct was exemplary".
[54][55] However, in a verbal report, Johnson said he had drawn the board's attention to various misdemeanours by Barnes that, in his opinion, were sufficiently serious to warrant the player's exclusion from future Australian Test sides.
[55] The misdeeds included taking pictures as the Australian team was presented to the royal family on the playing arena during the Test match at Lord's, asking permission to travel alone in England (Barnes' family was living in Scotland at the time), and "abducting" twelfth man Ernie Toshack to play tennis during the match at Northampton on a court "300 yards from the pavilion".
[55] However, Johnson believed that the cumulative effect of the misdeeds "warranted omission from the team" and he saw no problem in the fact that his verbal advice to the board recommending Barnes' exclusion was at odds with the written report on the 1948 tour.
[55] ... Shand had nearly reduced Johnson to tears, having previously caused a senior police officer to cry during the hearing of a royal commission the year before.
[60] Johnson wrote to the Australian Board of Control, ostensibly tendering his resignation on the grounds of difficulties in travelling to meetings,[59] and thanking the other members for their "courtesy, cooperation and help".
"[62] Johnson was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to cricket in the 1964 Queen's Birthday Honours,[63] and died in 1972 after collapsing when rising to make a speech at a charity lunch in Sydney.
