LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

27 Chapter Four Test Match Debut Having left Cambridge without a degree it was perhaps time for Robbie, now 22, to consider his future. A successful ‘gap summer’ or two, playing regularly for Middlesex, could lead to selection for the Test eleven. As an amateur he would receive match expenses, which at Middlesex could be generous, and by continuing to live at home with the support of his parents, his living costs would be minimal. He hoped to take up a teaching post at a preparatory school for a couple of terms during the winter before returning to the cricket field. He was in no hurry to commit himself to a business career and, with his growing portfolio of sporting achievements, could feel confident that opportunities to enter the world of finance or commerce would present themselves in due course. For now, with no responsibilities or commitments, life was there to be enjoyed and he had every intention of enjoying it to the full. According to Ian Peebles, who would soon become a regular companion in and outside the Middlesex dressing-room, ‘The young Robins took life at the charge, and his adventures and romances would occasionally find him, as his enterprise at the wicket, in exposed and embarrassing positions, far from home and beyond human aid.’ One week after the University match, Robbie was back at Lord’s playing for the first time in the Gentlemen versus Players annual fixture. It was another awakening for him when he found he had to bowl to batsmen of the calibre of Frank Woolley, Phil Mead, Patsy Hendren, Wally Hammond and Maurice Leyland. He failed to take a wicket in 19 overs while the Players amassed 423 runs. At least, when the Gentlemen followed on 223 behind, he had an opportunity to bring them back into the game going in at No.10. His knock of 25, while helping Percy Chapman add 46, helped give the amateurs a lead of 110. It was not enough and the Players won by nine wickets. Middlesex were anxious to have Robbie back in the side for the remainder of the season. They had lost one of their other promising young leg- spinners halfway through May when Ian Peebles, who had only just qualified for the county, was offered the prospect of a commercial career in the furniture business, working for Sir Julien Cahn in Nottingham. But Robbie’s return to the County Championship found him bowling again to an in-form Hammond who scored 166 out of 539 while Robbie’s 35.3 overs cost 126 runs for his two wickets and Middlesex lost by an innings. There was little improvement at Headingley with no wickets at all from 22 overs costing 86 runs. His Middlesex captain, Frank Mann, may have started to doubt the wisdom of encouraging Robbie’s ambitions as a leg-spinner