LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

31 runs on the board, Christy and Mitchell dug in and looked settled while taking the score past 50. White turned to Robbie for inspiration and his call was answered, as Wisden later reported: Robins going on at the pavilion end broke up the partnership and at once it became apparent the change should have been tried earlier. Making the ball turn a lot and quickly, Robins had all the batsmen in trouble, and when at twenty-five minutes past five South Africa had lost five wickets for 85, victory for England seemed certain. Then Cameron was hit on the head by a fast rising ball from Larwood and knocked ‘senseless’ to the ground. After he was carried off play continued but the unhappy incident had dampened everybody’s spirits and all real interest vanished. An appeal against bad light was welcomed by everyone and the players left the field at 5.45 anxious to hear that the injured batsman had recovered. Another elderly spin bowler was called in to the England attack for the next Test and Robbie was cast aside in favour of 41-year-old ‘Tich’ Freeman, by now rapidly approaching his 150th wicket of the season. Meanwhile, Robbie continued to take bundles of wickets for Middlesex and reached a hundred for the season before the end of July while taking ten wickets in a match for the first time, against Leicestershire at Leicester, and sharing all ten second-innings wickets with Peebles, as well as contributing 89 to a fourth wicket partnership of 160 with Hendren. The next Middlesex game was at Worcester against the county which had finished last in the Championship for the three previous seasons. Once again Worcestershire languished at the bottom of the table and Robbie spurned the opportunity to take some easy wickets as well as building his batting average, by asking Haig if he would mind if he skipped the match and joined the Robins family for the East Molesey Cricket Week. Permission granted, he played in four of the eight matches alongside his father and Uncle Vernon. Father and son, bowling in tandem — and no doubt in competition with one another — took most of the opposition wickets that fell, 22 out of 33, and East Molesey won three of the four matches, with the other unfinished because of rain. One week later, Robbie and Peebles shared all ten wickets in an innings again, this time against Lancashire at Old Trafford. Peebles was now getting into his stride and his own haul of wickets during August exceeded Robbie’s by 46 to 40. Meanwhile, Robbie had entered a purple patch with his batting in the last four county games of the season and scored 351 runs for an average of 70.00, including his maiden championship century, 105 at Taunton against Somerset, while enjoying yet another three-figure partnership with Hendren. But there was even more success to come. Nottinghamshire had finally broken the Lancashire and Yorkshire grip on the Championship that had lasted for seven consecutive seasons, and as new champions, they now faced a challenge from a strong Rest of England eleven at The Oval. Robbie was selected and demonstrated that he was among the top half-dozen allrounders in the country. After taking three lower-order victims in Nottinghamshire’s first innings, he Test Match Debut