LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

66 another 200 or more to make the England position impregnable. With rain about, Allen opted to put the Australians straight back in, but things didn’t go the way Allen had expected, so that by the end of the day Australia had reduced England’s lead to 201 for the loss of only one wicket with Bradman well set at 57 not out. During that dramatic third day there had been an incident involving Robbie and a brief exchange of words with Allen, the contents of which have been discussed at length over the years and created a myth frequently included within books and articles covering the history of the Ashes. The facts seem to be these. Australia lost their first wicket after following on at 38 for one and were slowly reducing England’s huge lead with difficulty when, according to the following day’s Sydney Morning Herald , ‘HOT CHANCE. Bradman at 24 made a fierce hook shot off Allen, and Robins, at square-leg, missed the most difficult of chances, the ball failing to stick in his right hand.’ Elsewhere on the same page in the newspaper an in-depth report commented: ‘Bradman made a vigorous shot off Allen and the ball travelled with great pace towards Robins, fielding near the square-leg umpire. Robins got the ball in his damaged right hand, but he could not hold it.’ The Age newspaper reported on the same day: ‘When Bradman had made 24 he hooked a ball from Allen vigorously and gave Robins a smoking-hot chance at square leg.’ That evening Allen wrote to his father: ‘We would have been in an impregnable position tonight if Robins had caught Don Bradman about 4.50 this afternoon off me for 24 at short leg. It was a ‘sitter’ and I have got a horrible sinking feeling inside me that it may cost us the match.’ So the ‘most difficult of chances’ or ‘smoking-hot chance’ had suddenly become a ‘sitter’ in Allen’s eyes. Neither Wisden in its report of the match, nor Cardus in his book about the tour, made any reference to a catch being dropped. As it turned out, the ‘catch’ made no difference to the result as Australia collapsed after the dismissal of Fingleton for 73, Bradman at 82, and McCabe at 93, and were all out for 324, giving England an innings victory. Even so, six days later, Allen was, incredibly, still complaining that the doubts over his decision to make Australia follow on would never have been raised: ‘if Robbie had caught Bradman off me when he had made 24, as he most certainly ought to have done.’ Fifty years later the reasons for Allen’s attitude were revealed in Wisden Cricket Monthly when John Arlott reported that when Robbie went to Allen to offer his genuine, but perhaps unnecessary, apology for not being able to hold the catch, he received the sarcastic reply: ‘Don’t give it a thought, Walter, it has probably cost us the rubber but don’t give it a thought.’ In his ‘authorised’ biography of Allen, published two years later, Swanton had heard a different version and wrote that Robins, ‘the man who scarcely ever dropped a catch, floored one which was going hard but straight at his throat’, apologised to Allen, who responded: ‘Oh, forget it, old boy, it’s probably cost us the rubber, but what the hell!’ Swanton then tried to play the situation down by justifying Allen’s unfair criticism by giving him the chance to explain: ‘Robbie was such a temperamental chap I thought the To Australia with Gubby