LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

69 him from bowling in any way close to the standard he usually reached. Nor does he acknowledge that only four weeks after receiving that injury he had expected Robbie to play and had entrusted him with the leadership for two consecutive first-class matches in November and then discovered afterwards that, following a series of disjointed performances from most of the players under his own captaincy, the whole side now simply refused to be downhearted and the tide had turned. Allen also conveniently forgot to mention that when it suited him to take a week off to enjoy himself with friends and family in Sydney between the First and Second Tests, and then another week off later in Melbourne before rejoining the team in Tasmania, he had no problem handing the leadership over to Robbie on each occasion. It also doesn’t seem to have occurred to Allen that over the past two months Robbie had not missed a day’s play from any of the ten matches played, including three Tests, and that before he arrived in Tasmania, the last time Allen saw Robbie playing was during the Third Test at Melbourne where the Australian press reported ‘squeals of delight from the female spectators in the 87,000 crowd as Robins ran, swooped, gathered and threw in a spectacular fashion that hadn’t been seen on a cricket field before’, hardly the actions of someone who, according to Allen ‘looks as though he isn’t trying’. There is no doubt that Robbie could rub people up the wrong way with his own particular brand of humour. He was a notorious leg-puller. He enjoyed poking fun at authority. To have ‘defied authority’ as Allen claims, sounds much more serious, but there is no other record, official or unofficial, of him having done so during the tour. It is difficult to imagine that the zealous, fervent and confident Robbie would ever declare that he ‘hates cricket, is no good at it, and wants to go home’. Presumably he was hugely frustrated by his inability to bowl to his own high standards because of the time it was taking to recover from the effects of the hand injury. It seems that either Allen had misread the situation or Robbie had exaggerated his feelings in a one-off outburst, because the depression, if that is what it was and not an elaborate wind-up, was short-lived and Robbie would be back playing as enthusiastically as ever in the next six matches. England made two changes for the next Test by replacing Worthington with Farnes and bringing in Wyatt for Sims. By reducing the number of spin-bowlers in the side meant that many more overs would probably be required from Robbie, which seems a strange decision at odds with Allen’s grumbles ten days earlier. England started well and had a first innings lead of 42 runs but then Bradman came in to his own with another double century and the final target of 392 runs proved too much for the England. Allen decided to miss the two games at Geelong, preferring to stay in Melbourne visiting friends and family, even though injuries meant that Robbie did not have a full eleven to lead and the MCC tour manager, Rupert Howard, had to be drafted into the side. The visit to the capital, Canberra, and the various official receptions planned for them there meant that Allen had to be present, even though he decided not to actually To Australia with Gubby