LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

64 To Australia with Gubby accident that could be passed off as ‘bad luck’. Because it was going to cause him some personal inconvenience, he felt the need to appear the victim of misbehaviour, although he had not been present and therefore not in a position to make such a judgement. Writing in the next letter home he complained: ‘Robbie fracturing his most important finger on his right hand, when fooling about at fielding practice, is a disaster.’ Ames was suffering from a recurrence of the back trouble that had kept him from playing most of the summer in England. His condition deteriorated to such an extent that he was talking about returning to Britain on the next boat home. Allen was not prepared to lose such a valuable member of the squad without a fight and sent him in the opposite direction: ‘I have packed him off by boat to Melbourne in the care of Robbie to see some doctors.’ It also served the purpose of keeping Robbie occupied and having his injured hand re-assessed. Two weeks later the tourists arrived in Melbourne to play Victoria and found Ames making progress towards a full recovery. It was still too early for Robbie to risk playing, so Allen was forced to continue as captain for the match and the one that followed against New South Wales after they had all moved on to Sydney. Even if he had considered placing the team in the hands of Wyatt, it was an option that was denied to him because of yet another injury at the country match at Clare a week earlier, this time to Wyatt, ‘breaking a bone in his arm which will keep him out of cricket for at least five or six weeks.’ There were two matches arranged during the two weeks spent in Sydney and MCC suffered their first defeat of the tour to New South Wales. Although Robbie was less than 100% fit, Allen told him to take over the team for the second match which was against an ‘Australian XI’, while he went off to the seaside for a long weekend, justifying his decision: ‘Robbie’s finger is better, but I am afraid it is going to be some time before he can bowl properly, but he has restarted in this match as we MUST have him for the first Test.’ Moving on to Brisbane, the next game was against Queensland, the last before the First Test. Allen decided to continue with his break, giving his reasons: ‘I decided not to play up here in the State match, as there were so many others who were trying to play into form (in vain, I fear, at present) and have had a good share of it to date.’ His share of the bowling in the first five first-class matches had, indeed, been excessive. Seemingly unable to trust his other fast bowlers, he had delivered 89 eight-ball overs himself, twice as many as Farnes, 40 overs, and Copson, also 40 overs, and far more than Voce, 54 overs, despite accusing him of being ‘pig fat’ in one of his letters and obviously in need of some long spells at the wicket. Robbie had no interest in any self-sacrifice nonsense and in the two games under his captaincy he asked Voce to bowl a total of 55 overs and Farnes 52 overs. This was exactly the workload that they had needed but Allen misunderstood Robbie’s motives and had only criticism for his actions during the game against Queensland: ’Robbie has got one of his fits of the funks and simply won’t put himself on. If he won’t bowl as I told him last night how are we going to find out how he is bowling?’ Robbie bowed