General News
26 January, 2024
Lloyd's great innings at 102 not out
By CHRIS EARL LLOYD Mills this week achieved one of his highest scores in life. The retired Mincha farmer who survived World War Two and batted on at the cricket crease until he was 81, marked his 102nd birthday at the property that has been in his...
By CHRIS EARL
LLOYD Mills this week achieved one of his highest scores in life.
The retired Mincha farmer who survived World War Two and batted on at the cricket crease until he was 81, marked his 102nd birthday at the property that has been in his family for five generations.
The century-plus two edges him behind the century that came with a six on a hot day decades ago for Mincha to claim a cricket win. For 30 years, he was Mincha’s opening batsman, never using gloves at the crease.
Another day he made 111 in the 1940s while his best hit in a career spanning more than 60 years was 115.
“I enjoyed my cricket,” Lloyd said at the weekend as he talked about life.
There was the time he was part of the world’s first game with all participants over 60 years, played at Brighton in 2003
Lloyd Mill was 81 at the time, Australia’s oldest registered cricketer, and one of two ex-servicemen from World War Two still playing cricket.
A year later, after having some years before crossed to the neighbouring Durham Ox club because they were short of players, Lloyd finally put his bat away. No more running between wickets, weighed down by shrapnel from the war.
Lloyd joined the Citizen Military Force in 1940 before enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force two years later.
He was first sent to Darwin, arriving days before the Japanese started bombing attacks in February 1942.
“The last part of the journey was in trucks making our way through scrub. There were no roads back then ... it was a nightmare,” Lloyd said.
“We went to Darwin with just five rounds of ammunition each to defend the place.”
With the AIF 6th Division, he was sent to New Guinea and Bougainville.
That’s where a squad was on patrol and a ground mine exploded.
“I’ve still got the shrapnel in the leg, I was blown off my feet. I was at the rear with a machine gun,” Lloyd said.
He was demobbed in 1946 and returned to the family farm at Mincha where he produced fat lambs for wool and grew crops.
Sons Richard and Doug said the property had been wool based with Lloyd adding: “It’s been pretty successful.”
It was only five years ago that Lloyd stopped driving and still reads newspapers without glasses nor is he on medication.
Lloyd has outlived his siblings. Twin brother Richard died of a brain tumour aged 10, Bruce of cancer aged 43 and elder sister Jean lived to 98.
“I’ve never smoked ... even those years in the Army I never smoked,” he said.
Back before the over 60s cricket match in 2003, Lloyd admitted to one writer that it had been “a good while” since he made a hundred himself, but he did wind back the clock a few years ago by opening the batting for Durham Ox, and sharing a first-wicket partnership of 50.
“There’s life in the old legs yet,” he said at the time before meeting sporting legends Herb Elliott, Bill Lawry and Shane Warne.
Richard and Doug said their father retained a great knowledge of a life that started 102 years ago in Pyramid Hill.
And he enjoyed Tuesday’s special family celebration when daughter Deborah visited.
Lloyd again recalled stories of his 102 years and as the Loddon’s oldest resident.