Gubby Under Pressure

And when it came to Allen’s fifth outing, with Ames now available to play, why did he select Worthington for his fourth consecutive match and drop himself down to ninth in the batting order? Voce or Farnes could have been brought in to join Copson instead as the strike bowlers, and again given Allen some relief from the 33 overs he felt compelled to bowl. If Voce was as ‘pig-fat’ as Allen described him, another stint on the field at Sydney may have been more beneficial than a week off. It is interesting to note that when Robins took over as captain for the next two matches, while Allen took a well-earned rest, Robins had no interest in any self-sacrifice ‘nonsense’, much to Allen’s annoyance when he found out. During both games Robins asked Voce to bowl a total of 55 overs, Farnes 52 overs and Verity a massive 93 overs, and restricted himself to a mere 33 overs, half of them in Queensland’s second innings and only eight more than Worthington who only played once. 8 At Sydney: 20, 21, 23 and 24 November, 1936. ¹ MCC 288 [L.E.G.Ames 76, M.Leyland 80, R.W.V.Robins 53, A.G.Chipperfield 8-66] and 245-8 [M.Leyland 118*]: Australian XI 544-8d [J.H.W.Fingleton 56, W.A.Brown 71, D.G.Bradman 63, C.L.Badcock 182]. Match drawn. In their second innings, MCC needed 256 runs to avoid an innings defeat and finished the match with two wickets standing. Allen had nothing to say about the match against an Australian XI at Sydney. He left on Friday afternoon for a long weekend at one of his favourite seaside resorts, only a couple hours after the game started, with MCC batting, and did not return until the following Tuesday morning, when MCC were in their second innings desperately batting to avoid an innings defeat. Just as well that he hadn’t seen first hand the Australians carving up the MCC bowlers to take an unbeatable first-innings lead. Reading the bowling figures must have been bad enough. 9 At Brisbane [Woolloongabba]: 27, 28 and 30 November, 1 December, 1936. ¹ MCC 215 [M.Leyland 98, T.Allen 4-27] and 528-8d [A.E.Fagg 112, C.J.Barnett 259, L.E.G.Ames 60]: Queensland 243 [W.A.Brown 74, R.E.Rogers 62, H.Verity 5-50] and 227-9 [G.W.Baker 63, R.W.V.Robins 4-63]. Match drawn. Queensland were set 501 runs to win in 215 minutes, but were forced to defend to avoid losing. Resisting the temptation to throw himself back into the fray, Allen decided to continue with his break and miss the next game in Brisbane. He wisely figured that there were several players in need of match practice more than he did, and the only way he was ever going to be able to accurately pick the right players for the First Test, now only a week away, was to see what some of them could do to improve on their previous lack of success. It proved to be exactly the right decision and gave Allen reasons to feel cheerful at last. ‘I decided not to play up here in the state match, as there were so many others who were trying to play into form (in vain, I fear at present) and have had a good share of it to date. They put up another really bad display of batting in the first innings, but though it may sound ridiculous on the face of it, I really believe the tide is turning. What is so good is that the whole side simply refuse to be downhearted about their The cricket 40