Gubby Under Pressure

be known, as his efforts had triggered off a lumbago attack which kept him out of the rest of the match. Otherwise Allen may well have sought out Bradman in the luncheon interval and asked for an explanation. It never came to that and, fortunately for both MCC and the Australian Board, McCormick’s illness meant the game could proceed without stirring up old resentments and arguments. And what a game it was! By the end of the first day, honours between the two sides were about even. On the second day, England reached a respectable score of 358, thanks to some aggressive batting from Allen, in an all-or-nothing innings, during which he walloped O’Reilly into the stands for a massive six. The Australian innings started badly with Badcock playing on to Allen with only 13 on the board. Bradman entered and the two captains squared up to each other for the first time in more than two years. Bradman struck three consecutive boundaries as Allen strained with heroic intent to bowl each ball faster then the one before. But it was Voce who captured the vital wicket and the day ended with neither side in the ascendancy. With no play on the Sunday, Neville Cardus encountered Allen leaving the hotel in the morning for a day at the beach and was told: ‘Whether we win this match or not, we’ll win the rubber. We’ve got O’Reilly down; he can’t spin his leg-break.’ On his return from the beach Allen took the opportunity to update his parents: ‘We have so far had two days play and, though we can hardly claim that we are in a winning position, I think we have just got the better of things for the moment as they have to bat last and the wicket may break up. It certainly has shown no signs of doing so, so far, but if we can make 450 on it next time and we certainly ought to, it might be a different story. The best bit of news to my mind is that I believe that O’Reilly has lost much of his cunning and if that is the case we ought to make millions in the future. So far both my gambles have come off, but the luck of the game is still running against us. Fagg and Barnett were both caught wide on the leg side and that is always a fluke and nothing went quite to hand for us, though we looked more like a Test team in the field. I was out last to a brilliant catch having a “go”.’ The third day saw Voce finally rising to the occasion to tear the Australian batting apart, giving England a healthy first innings lead of 124. Allen was over the moon: ‘Had an amazing day yesterday in the Test match. Everything came off for me and it was about time too. If only we can now bat decently we ought to win this match as I still have hopes that the wicket won’t last indefinitely and the Australians should have at least 500 to make to win. Anyhow, whatever happens we have astonished the world and made me very happy.’ England did not make enough runs in their second innings to give Australia Allen’s hoped-for target of 500 plus. But 381 was probably going to be beyond them anyway, thanks to a brilliant innings from Allen himself. It was probably the best Test innings of his career, ‘courageous and imaginative’ according to Cardus. He came in at fifth wicket down, with England struggling only 246 runs ahead, and for three and a quarter hours he kept pushing the score along, despite everything that O’Reilly could bowl at him, and was last out for 68. When the Australian second innings began there was only 15 minutes play left for the day in fading light, and they immediately asked the umpires for an adjournment. It The cricket 44