No sledging as Bill Brown turns 90

BRISBANE, July 31 AAP - Bill Brown has turned 90 and Australia's oldest living Test cricketer still loves the sport, even though he's not taken with sledging or one-day matches.

Brown celebrated his birthday in Brisbane today with family and friends, including Walter Hadlee, who led New Zealand against Brown's Australians in 1946.

It was the only time Brown captained Australia but he packed plenty into his 22-Test career, including two centuries at Lord's and hundreds of days alongside some of the game's greatest names.

He played through most of the Don Bradman era, played against English stars such as Len Hutton and Walter Hammond, and finished his career as part of the Invincibles tour of England in 1948.

Brown still follows cricket closely from his Brisbane home, with a vivid memory of his playing days, and today repeated his admiration for Australian Test captain Steve Waugh.

But he wasn't speaking in the same glowing terms of sledging and match-fixing, while admitting he didn't follow one-day matches closely, preferring the "cut-and-thrust" of Tests.

"I obviously find match-fixing abhorrent," Brown said.

"And one of the key things which has crept into the game which I'm not keen about would be the sledging.

"I don't like any form of sledging, that's it.

"We asked Sir Donald Bradman once about sledging and what he would do and he said `I would give them one warning and if they didn't stop it they wouldn't be in the side anymore'.

"We had a far better accord with the opposition players than they do now although no longer being a player I can't say too much."

It's hard to imagine Brown being anything but pleasant during his long life and marriage to Barbara.

Brown said he didn't know much about life aged in the nineties, except that he would use the same formula which he used while bating in the nervous nineties.

"Plenty of short, sharp singles," Brown said.

"With anything, you need a bit of luck and I've been fortunate to have a wonderful life."

According to cricket statistician Ross Dundas, Brown becomes the seventh Australian Test player to live into his nineties.

Australia's oldest Test cricketer was Ken Burn, who died in 1956 aged 93 years and 307 days.