Gubby Under Pressure

the failures and flops who had let him down. ‘Actually I think we are a rotten side and cannot think how we ever won a single match. The following list of complete failures speaks for itself: Robins, Worthington, Fagg, Fishlock, Sims, Wyatt (through injury) and Hardstaff (in Tests). Never have there been so many flops in one side. Ken Farnes bowled splendidly throughout this trying first innings, but of course he has not been through the racket of the first three Test as the rest of us have. I said at the selection meeting one should never go into the field with three fast bowlers and no spinner, as one is asking for trouble. I suppose it is true that we have no spinner good enough but even if he is bad he produces variation.’ It seems that, because he was returning to the side after his extended absence and was not aware of current form, Allen had allowed his selection committee to dictate the make-up of the team for the final Test. Perhaps he should have argued more strongly for the inclusion of Sims, even if he did include him in his list of ‘complete failures’. Allen’s reference to the absence of a spinner surprisingly ignores the reliable and ever-present off-spin of Verity, but was echoed by Cardus as far as leg-spin was concerned as he believed it was ‘foolhardy of England to take the field without leg-spin, even the leg-spin of Sims’. Pollock agreed: ‘Jim Sims showed only an occasional flash of his Lord’s bowling in this tour, but I heard Woodfull, Ponsford, Vic Richardson and other experts often say that they would always have played him in the Tests.’ The cricket 59 A fatal choice. Allen loses the toss at the start of the Fifth Test, in Melbourne