Gubby Under Pressure

England at the conclusion of the Australian portion of the tour, should business commitments demand his personal attention. Either such a situation arose, or he used it as a convenient excuse to remove himself from Allen’s shadow of discontent, but Robins wasted no more time and flew to Perth to catch the first ship available to return to England. Allen was in two minds about the departure of his friend: ‘Robbie has gone home in the Orion and, though he did worry me to death, I shall miss him terribly as he always has something funny to say.’ Final Test disappointment 24 At Melbourne: 26 and 27 February, 1, 2 and 3 March, 1937. Fifth Test Match. ¹ Australia 604 [D.G.Bradman 169, S.J.McCabe 112, C.L.Badcock 118, R.G.Gregory 80, K.Farnes 6-96]: England 239 [J.Hardstaff 83, L.J.Nash 4-70, W.J.O’Reilly 5-51] and following on, 165 [W.R.Hammond 56]. Australia won by an innings and 200 runs. The home side thus won the series 3-2. Bradman and McCabe added 249 for the Australian third wicket in 163 minutes. Just about everything that could go wrong for England in the Fifth Test did go wrong. Allen lost the toss and Australia had the good luck to bat on a perfect batsman’s wicket for two days and build a match-winning first innings score, thanks to some important dropped catches. England started slowly and never really looked like reaching let alone overtaking Australia when, on the night of the third day came rain, thunder and lightning. Allen had virtually conceded defeat by the end of the second day, writing home: ‘Australia has scored 590 against us and I fear our chances of winning must now be very slender. I shall always think that fate played me a dirty trick when I lost the toss for the third time running, but I always did say I was the worst tosser in the world and could never understand how I managed to win the first two. It will be a terrible record to have won the first two Tests and got everyone excited only to lose the last three. I have bowled badly and dropped two catches but in self defence I must say I have worked myself to death and am now nothing like half fit to play Test cricket.’ Conceding almost six runs from each of his 17 overs, without taking a wicket was disappointing, and could be explained by Allen’s physical condition, but there was no excuse for the dropped catches. In the third over of the match, Fingleton glanced a ball from Farnes straight to Allen at short leg, who failed to hold it. According to Cardus, it was ‘for Test cricket, an easy chance.’ Soon after lunch McCabe pulled a ball from Farnes to Allen’s right hand at square leg and Cardus was again critical: ‘Had the catch been held, it would not have seemed extraordinary. This was the last straw and it broke our backs.’ McCabe went on to score 112. Cardus was in a more sympathetic mood when describing Allen’s dismissal for a duck in England’s first innings while trying to hit Nash out of the ground: ‘Poor Allen! The sad fading light of the lost cause had fallen upon him, making him look heroic.’ All of his team’s many achievements during the tour counted for nothing in Allen’s final assessment of his players. Without even waiting to see how the team might fare when England came to bat, Allen started to point his finger at The cricket 58