LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

71 winner, but when he had added billiards to his repertoire of superiority, his host had had enough. Bradman invited a friend to dinner but when he was introduced as Walter Lindrum, Robbie did not recognise the name as that of the current world billiards champion. Challenged to a game, Robbie found himself outclassed before the penny dropped and Bradman confessed to his subterfuge. Soon after it was time for Robbie to fly from Adelaide to Perth and board his ship for its voyage home. Allen was in two minds about the departure of his friend: ‘Robbie has gone home in the Orion and, though he did worry me to death, I shall miss him terribly as he always has something funny to say.’ This did not prevent him from putting Robbie first on his list of disappointments when assessing performances after the tour was over: ‘The following list of complete failures speaks for itself — Robins, Worthington, Fagg, Fishlock, Sims, Wyatt (through injury) and Hardstaff (in Tests).’ It seems unfair that he would qualify Wyatt’s inclusion as being as a result of injury, but does not extend the same excuse to Robbie, and that he fails to give Robbie any credit for the enormous debt he owed him for standing in for him so frequently, when he personally felt he needed rest and recuperation, and ignored the fact that Robbie himself could have benefited from the same consideration. Talking to Anthony Meredith fifty years later, Allen paused for thought when asked who had been his greatest helper on the tour, and the author picked up on his hesitation and wrote: ‘The captaincy, it seemed, had been a lonely job,’ before Allen gave his limited list: ‘I had two or three quite intelligent chaps. Robbie. Robbie was intelligent, when he was paying attention. Bob Wyatt, of course. Maurice Leyland.’ Reluctantly perhaps, but proof that Allen had always valued the part played by Robbie in Australia, even if he could never bring himself to admit it at the time. To Australia with Gubby