Miller, who was considered the greatest Australian all-rounder of all time and a member of Donald Bradman's celebrated 1948 "Invincibles" team generally seen as one of the greatest of all time, played 55 cricket Tests for Australia.

Tall and handsome, Miller took 170 wickets and scored 2,958 runs in Test matches. He helped rejuvenate Test cricket after World War Two before eventually retiring in 1956.

Miller was also a World War II fighter pilot who flew many Mosquito sorties over Germany and survived a crash landing, an Aussie Rules footballer, a media personality and a raconteur.

The mourners were led by Miller's second wife Marie, his four sons Bill, Peter, Denis and Bob, his seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Former Australian Test captain Richie Benaud, who played alongside Miller towards the end of his career, said everything written and said about Miller since his death was true.

"His name will live for as long as cricket exists," Benaud said.

Another former Australian captain Ian Chappell told of being taken to the Adelaide Oval by his father in the early 1950s to be given one simple instruction: "Watch Miller".

"That's all my father told me, and that was all that I did," Chappell told the congregation.

Among others who paid tribute to Miller were the great distance runner and now governor of Victoria state, John Landy, Miller's teammates from the "Invincibles" team Neil Harvey, Sam Loxton and Bill Brown, and numerous Test players of past and present including current captain Ricky Ponting and former skippers Bill Lawry and Steve Waugh.

"He was a cricketer every boy wanted to be like," local television personality Tony Charlton said in the main eulogy.

John Bradman, son of Don, told mourners Miller was a close and special family friend.

"He was wonderfully supportive when my dad died (in 2001)," said John Bradman.

"My dad said Keith was Australia's greatest all-round cricketer. My father told me that he never had a more loyal supporter than Keith Miller."

Showing a disregard for convention and a flair for storytelling, Miller famously described cricket as just a game. He said real pressure was having a German fighter plane on your tail.

"They both played cricket for the sheer love of it and they were both deeply modest," John Bradman said of Miller and his father.

Miller also spent time working as a newspaper journalist in England and loved horse racing. He named one of his four sons after his England cricket rival and long-time friend, Denis Compton.

Actor Peter O'Toole and the reclusive US billionaire Paul Getty, who died in London last year, were among Miller's friends.

His portrait hangs in the Long Room at Lord's.

His coffin was draped in the Australia flag.

Miller's baggy green Australia cap and a tiny silver cup presented to him for a brilliant half-century scored as a 16-year-old in Melbourne club cricket were displayed on a small table beside the coffin.

The funeral procession left the church for a wake in the Keith Miller Room at the nearby Melbourne Cricket Ground, where a statue outside the stadium shows the fast bowler in full flight.