LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

39 Test Match Debut still claims that it was he who was the cause of us getting married!’ Their younger son Richard, who lived in Australia in the mid 1960s, recalls that Sir Don was still claiming responsibility ‘and always roared with laughter!’ There seemed little doubt that Robbie would retain his place in the England eleven for the Second Test, at Lord’s, so he stayed working in Nottingham and declined the opportunity to play in two county matches for Middlesex. But there were changes made by the selectors to the winning team including the replacement of Tyldesley by 39-year-old Jack White, himself one of the selectors and a favourite of Chapman. Larwood and Sutcliffe were both unfit, so at least Robbie was pleased to learn that his Middlesex friend, ‘Gubby’ Allen had been brought into the side, as well as Duleepsinhji, his former university team-mate. Robbie’s accommodation in London was already arranged as his father Vivian had been posted to the Command Pay Office in Malta, so the house in Kingston had been sold and Mabel and Letitia had moved into a flat in St John’s Wood with a room for Robbie when he arrived. As the players gathered at Lord’s on the first morning of the Second Test, the England dressing-room became the stage for the ‘affair of the caps’, a one-act farce starring the chairman of the selectors, ‘Shrimp’ Leveson Gower, Robbie and Jack Hobbs. Three Middlesex and ex-England players were anxious to replenish their fading England caps and had asked Robbie if he would pick up some new ones for them. He arrived at the ground early and went to the box of new caps in the England dressing-room and slipped three into his bag before going out to have a pre-match net. But Formalities. A.P.F.Chapman introducing K.S.Duleepsinhji to King George V during the Lord’s Test of 1930: Robbie is next in line.