Keeton was again Nottinghamshire's leading batsman in 1934, averaging more than 43 runs an innings, and his three centuries in the season included two double-centuries. Against Gloucestershire in June he scored 261, his highest score to that point, from a weak attack in which all players except the wicketkeeper bowled. Less than a month later he made 223 against Worcestershire. When a few days later Herbert Sutcliffe was forced through injury to stand down from the England team to play the Australians in the fourth Ashes Test at Leeds, Keeton was drafted in as his replacement for his Test debut. It was not a good Test match for England: outplayed in all departments over four days, they saved the match through the intervention, when they were 165 runs behind with just four second-innings wickets remaining, of a thunderstorm which flooded the pitch, making further play impossible. No England batsman reached 50 in either innings, and Keeton, with scores of 25 and 12, like all his batting colleagues, got into double figures twice but not much further; by contrast, Bill Ponsford scored 181 and Don Bradman 304 for the Australians. Sutcliffe was recovered by the time of the fifth Test and resumed his place in the team at Keeton's expense.