Keith Ormond Edley Johnson (28 December 1894 – 19 October 1972), was an Australian cricket administrator. He was the manager of the Australian Services cricket team in England, India and Australia immediately after World War II, and of the Australian team that toured England in 1948. 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.

Johnson joined the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket in 1935 as a delegate for New South Wales and served in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II, performing public relations work in London. With the allied victory in Europe, first-class cricket resumed and Johnson was appointed to manage the Australian Services team, which played England in a series of celebratory matches known as the Victory Tests to usher in the post-war era. The series was highly successful, with unprecedented crowds raising large amounts for war charities. As a result, further matches were scheduled and Johnson's men toured British India and Australia before being demobilised. Johnson's administration was regarded as a major factor in the success of the tour.

In 1948, Johnson managed the Australian tour of England, which again brought record profits and attendances, in spite of Australia's overwhelming dominance. Johnson's management of the tour—which generated large amounts of media attention—was again lauded. However, in 1951–52, the Australian Board of Control excluded Sid Barnes from the team for "reasons other than cricket". Barnes took the matter to court, and in the ensuing trial, his lawyer embarrassed Johnson, who contradicted himself several times under cross-examination. Following the trial, Johnson resigned from the board and took no further part in cricket administration.

Early years and pre-World War II career Johnson was born on 28 December 1894 in the inner-Sydney suburb of Paddington. 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. 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. His unit left Sydney on 10 February 1917 and headed for Europe. He returned to Australia on 1 July 1919.

After the end of World War I, Johnson married his wife Margaret. Johnson joined the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket in 1935 as a delegate for the New South Wales Cricket Association, having been affiliated with the Mosman Cricket Club in Sydney Grade Cricket. 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.Haigh and Frith, p. 82.

Managerial career Australian Services

During World War II, Johnson served in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He enlisted in the RAAF on 13 April 1942 in Sydney. Johnson rose to the rank of flight lieutenant and was deployed to London, where he did public relations work at the RAAF's overseas headquarters.Haigh and Frith, p. 97. 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. Officially a military unit, the team's commanding officer was Squadron leader Stan Sismey of the RAAF, although the on-field captain was Warrant officer Lindsay Hassett of the Second Australian Imperial Force.Perry, pp. 98–104.

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack praised Johnson's organisational work in arranging the services' tour: "A stranger to this country, he found the programme in only skeleton form; and that the tour proved such a success from every point of view was due to his hard work and courtesy." The almanack reprinted Johnson's message of thanks to the English cricket community in full before the team sailed to India.

The Victory Tests started in May 1945 between the Australian Services and England in celebration of the allied victory in Europe. In previous seasons, the English cricket administrator and former captain Pelham Warner had organised matches between the RAAF and various English military teams as an expression of defiance against Nazi air raids, and the Victory Tests were a continuation of this, although the matches were only three days long and did not have Test status.Perry, pp. 103–104.Pollard (1988), pp. 358–362.

In the First Victory Test, the Australian Servicemen scraped home by six wickets with only two balls and minutes to spare. 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.Perry, pp. 106–110.Pollard (1988), pp. 362–363. England then levelled the series by winning the Second Victory Test at Bramall Lane, Sheffield with a hard-fought battle, by 41 runs.Perry, pp. 111–114. Australia won the Third Victory Test by four wickets late on the final day and drew the Fourth Victory Test at Lord's. That would have been the end of the series, but because of the record attendance of 93,000 at Lord's, another match was appended.Perry, pp. 122–128.Pollard (1988), pp. 364–366. England drew the series by winning the Fifth Victory Test in front of another capacity crowd. The Victory Tests were regarded as an outstanding success, with a total attendance of 367,000 and bright and attacking play.Perry, pp. 130–132.

Due to the unexpectedly strong success of the Victory Tests, the government of Australia, acting on the impetus of Foreign Minister H.V. "Doc" Evatt, ordered the Australian Services to delay their demobilisation. With the team raising so much money for war charities, the government directed them to travel home via India and Ceylon to play further matches, in order to raise more funds for the Red Cross.Perry, pp. 137–138.Pollard (1988), p. 367.

Johnson found himself in a difficult situation during the Indian leg of the tour. 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. The airmen wanted to travel by air, and threatened to abandon the tour or replace Hassett, an AIF member, with either Keith Carmody or Keith Miller, who were RAAF fighter pilots. However, the standoff was ended when Sismey arranged for a RAAF plane to transport the team.Perry, pp. 145–146.Pollard (1988), p. 369. On the playing arena, it was not a happy tour for Johnson and his men. They lost the three-match series against India 1–0 and recorded only one victory, against South Zone, in their nine matches.Perry, pp. 151–152.Pollard (1988), pp. 368–370.

Johnson's team arrived in Australia towards the end of 1945, but the armed services and Australian Board of Control ordered them to play another series against the various Australian states.Perry, p. 157. Johnson had sought fixtures for his team in Australia, but this was before the Evatt had added the matches in the subcontinent.Jaggard, p. 70. He implored the administrators to recognise that the players were already overworked, but was ignored.Jaggard, p. 71. The Services performed poorly; after playing out consecutive draws against Western Australia and South Australia, they were crushed by an innings by both Victoria and New South Wales, before drawing against Queensland and Tasmania, the smallest state in the country.Perry, pp. 157–164.Pollard (1988), pp. 371–374.

Johnson was involved in another administrative dispute during the Australian leg of the campaign. Cec Pepper—whom teammates Miller and Dick Whitington regarded as one of the best all rounders in the world and a certainty for Australian Test selection—appealed for leg before wicket against Australian captain Don Bradman in the match against South Australia. The appeal was turned down and Pepper complained to the umpire Jack Scott, prompting Bradman—who was also a member of the Australian Board of Control and the board of the South Australian Cricket Association—to ask Scott whether Pepper's behaviour was acceptable. As he was an employee of the SACA, Scott answered to Bradman, and he lodged a complaint about Pepper to the Australian Board of Control. Pepper was never selected for Australia.Pollard (1988), p. 372. Cricket historian Gideon Haigh said that "Johnson was clearly upset by the affair, and also by the failure of the [national] selection panel [Bradman among them] ... to send Pepper, second only to Miller as a cricketer in the Services XI, to New Zealand".Haigh and Frith, pp. 98–99. Johnson tried to intercede on Pepper's behalf, to no avail, although the other board members claimed that no pressure had been placed on the selectors to exclude Pepper.

The home leg of the tour was a poor end to the long and taxing Australian Services campaign. As the military men played poorly in Australia, the national selectors concluded that their achievements against England must have been against weak opposition, and only Hassett and Miller were selected for the Australian tour of New Zealand.Perry, pp. 164–165. Johnson then helped to arrange England's first post-war tour of Australia, in 1946–47.

1948 tour

Johnson was a late appointment as manager for the 1948 tour of England, taking over from his New South Wales colleague Bill Jeanes, who was secretary of the Australian Board of Control and had managed the previous Australian tour of England in 1938. Jeanes had become increasingly unpopular among the players because of an approach that Haigh called "increasingly officious and liverish".Haigh and Frith, p. 100.

Led by Bradman—widely regarded as the greatest batsman in history—the Australians went through their 34 matches without defeat, earning the sobriquet The Invincibles. They won 25 of their matches, 17 of these by an innings, and crushed England 4–0 in the five Tests, winning most games heavily.

Despite the Australians' domination of the local teams, the English public showed unprecedented levels of interest in the cricket. Record gate takings were registered at most venues, even when rain affected the matches,Perry, p. 226. and the record attendance for a Test match in England was broken twice, in the Second Test at Lord's and the Fourth Test at Headingley. The 158,000 spectators that watched the proceedings at Headingley remain a record for a Test on English soil.Allen, pp. 106–107. As a result, Australia made £82,671 from the tour, resulting in a profit of £54,172.Haigh and Frith, p. 101. The popularity of the team meant that they were inundated with invitations for social appointments with government officials and members of the royal family, and they had to juggle a plethora of off-field engagements, with 103 days of scheduled cricket in the space of 144 days. As a result, Johnson was flooded with phone calls and letters, which he had to attend to by himself, as he was the only administrator among the touring party.Bradman, p. 233. Bradman later said he was worried that Johnson's tireless work would cause health problems because he "worked like a slave day and night" and that "it was the tribute to a bulldog determination to see the job through". The journalist Andy Flanagan said that Johnson was "'on the ball' every minute of the waking day, and it would be safe to say half the night too."Allen, p. 92.