LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

99 * * * * * * * In 1951 the Canadian Cricket Association invited MCC to send an amateur team to Canada to encourage further development and popularity of the game. The tour was not scheduled to start until the beginning of August but, even so, Robbie played only two first-class matches in England before leaving. He played once for Middlesex under the captaincy of Bill Edrich at Lord’s against Hampshire in May, and in June went with the Free Foresters to Cambridge to play the University. Fenner’s was a noted featherbed in those days and Robbie said he could make a hundred on it with a walking stick. Gubby Allen went in to hit an entertaining 103 but when it was his turn, Robbie was bowled first ball by John Warr in the first innings and again in the second, to suffer the fourth ‘king-pair’ of his career. Teddy Unwin, who followed him in both innings, and on a hat-trick both times, said as they passed the second time: ‘I‘m getting rather bored with this!’ Two weeks later, accompanied by his brother Vernon, Robbie went to Eton College to play for the Forty Club again. On this occasion this time the dismissal of young Charles was kept within the family and he was caught by his uncle off Robbie’s bowling. But there was still time for a proud father to watch his son play at Lord’s in his second Eton and Harrow match, when he was delighted to see him take thirteen wickets, eight for 29 in the first innings and five for 62 in the second, when Harrow managed to reach 167 for nine and escape with a draw, still 105 runs behind. On 24 July, the touring party of fourteen sailed from Liverpool to Canada. Robbie had been appointed captain and he was pleased that the party included young John Warr who had already had played with him for Middlesex. Warr never forgot the experience of playing under Robbie: ‘He would subject the batsman to a non-stop running commentary on the current state of the game, the percentage of luck he considered he was getting and the inadequacies of his own bowling.’ The team was scheduled to play 22 matches in six weeks and would visit twelve towns and cities. Robbie knew that Canadians had been brought up on a diet of baseball and that to sell them the game of cricket it would be vital that MCC fielding was as athletic as possible, so he ordered extra practice sessions before every game. In Toronto they played a three-day first-class match against Canada which MCC won by 141 runs and then travelled to Montreal for the last two games, in the second of which, against a Montreal West Indian eleven, Robbie hit his second century of the tour. The visit has largely been reported as successful: R.S.Rait Kerr thought the team ‘brought enormous pleasure and encouragement’ and ‘delighted their hosts with their aggressive play’. More recently though, it has been said that there was dissent in the party over Robbie’s approach to discipline and his insistence on slaughtering club-standard opposition. The Spirit of Middlesex Undimmed