LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

125 Chairman of England Selectors of the wicket and that net trials should be conducted and a trial match played in July with a four-stump wicket measuring eleven inches wide. Robbie wrote to Bradman: ‘I did not turn up at the lbw meeting last week as I am much against any change and really I am fed up with the numerous changes which have been tried over the last ten years, including the front foot.’ Bradman agreed: Regarding the lbw law, I’m afraid I cannot see the logic of those who want to go back to the pre-1935 law. It had failed and people felt impelled to change it. If not, they wouldn’t have done so. Why did it fail? Mainly because people like Sutcliffe shouldered arms and refused to play shots at balls outside the off stump. The new 1935 law was designed to force them to play at such balls. I see no evidence whatever that a return to the old law will cause fellows like Cowdrey and Barrington to alter their style. I played under both laws, it didn’t alter my method of play at all. Perhaps the new law has encouraged negative forward play, bat and pad. Here I think umpires have tended to overdo giving the man not out if he played forward, thus encouraging him to play forward negatively. If I could be persuaded that batsmen would play more shots if we went back to the old law, I might listen, but I can’t see it. I am aware that some fellows, like Cowdrey, today ostensibly play at the ball, but in fact deliberately play outside it, with the pad inside to intercept the ball. I believe it is simple to tell the genuine from the phoney. And this business of bat over shoulder and pads in front, should have gone out with horse trams. But all in all, your philosophy is right. Players must have the right mental approach to hit the ball à la Sobers. If they did, grounds would be full, I would fly 1,000 miles to see him bat tomorrow, but I wouldn’t go across the road to watch some of our so-called batsmen. That would be the position under any rules whatever. When July came, nothing positive had been learned from the net trials and players in the experimental match showed little enthusiasm. The Committee reported back the pros and cons and MCC recommended to the ACCC that no immediate change should be made. Perhaps Robbie had been right not to waste his time by being involved. Despite the England’s poor showing in Australia the selectors decided to keep Dexter as captain, hoping that he would respond to the leadership style of Frank Worrell, the West Indian skipper. In the First Test, at Old Trafford, Worrell gave a clear indication of how he intended his team to always look for victory when he declared the West Indies first innings closed as soon as they reached 500 on the afternoon of the second day, instead of the usual international captain’s policy of batting on to build a score that ensured they could not be beaten. It paid off and England were forced to follow on and lost by ten wickets with a day to spare. Robbie wrote to Bradman: ‘Frank Worrell is not only a splendid person and a fine character but a great leader and his team rightly will do anything for him.’ It was obviously going to be a series that was guaranteed to give Robbie enormous pleasure and restore his faith in Test cricket and he confided in Bradman: ‘If it happens that we get beaten at Lord’s there will be the old