LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

25 Cambridge and Aubrey Faulkner Rhodes added: ‘That will teach you not to take notice of old professionals.’ It is not known what W.A.Worsley, the Yorkshire captain, made of it all. The incident certainly gave Robbie food for thought: when he played against Yorkshire for Middlesex later that summer, Rhodes couldn’t get him out in either innings. After six matches at Fenner’s, during which Robbie had bowled 67.4 overs and taken only five wickets at a cost of 231 runs, he suddenly blossomed into a genuine leg-break and googly bowler when the University embarked on its summer tour. At Northampton he took seven wickets for 87 runs in 32 overs as Cambridge won by an innings. In the next four games he bowled 111 overs and took 16 wickets, but they cost 428 runs and he still needed to work on his line and length to complement his newly developed deceptive flight. At Lord’s against an MCC eleven it all came good and he took eight wickets for only 127 runs from 39.4 overs, including six for 61 in the club’s second innings, the first time he had taken five or more wickets in a first-class innings. As far as batting was concerned, up to then he had scored 494 runs from 20 innings and had reached 50 only twice. In this game he scored 103, his first three-figure innings in first-class cricket, and added 180 with Ted Killick. Robbie with K.S.Duleepsinhji at The Oval in 1928. The Cambridge University side in this match included four players who in their time played Test cricket.