LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

88 Chapter Eleven A Fresh Start with Old Friends Middlesex faced a problem before the first post-war season had even started when Ian Peebles decided to withdraw as captain in October 1945 but as he later reported: By a stroke of good luck Walter Robins was available and willing to do a couple of seasons as captain in order to get the club established again. He kindly asked me to play a few matches, partly to help out, as he was short-handed at first, and partly for old times’ sake. I played about half-a-dozen games with great pleasure but to little effect, and then happily made way for younger and fitter men. Robbie, who was 40 during the 1946 season, had also been asked to take a place on the England Selection Committee and leading Middlesex would give him the opportunity to have a first-hand look at new blood in the other counties. Robbie’s own team was certainly the strongest batting side in the country but the bowling attack looked thin, although Sims had been given early release from the Army. The County Championship had been ‘rationalised’ and now each county played 26 matches only, so that the positions in the table could be determined by points scored and not percentages or averages. The reduction in the number of games also provided an opportunity to introduce a knock-out competition but for the time being the idea was suspended, much to Robbie’s disappointment. When Robertson and Brown walked out to open the Middlesex innings at Lord’s on the morning of the first county match, they emerged through the centre door of the pavilion. The MCC Committee had confirmed their decision to discontinue the practice of amateurs and professionals using separate dressing-rooms, thanks to the decisive action of Robbie the week before. It had been decided to have a one-day pre-season warm-up match between MCC and Middlesex and when the players assembled they automatically went to their pre-war places with the professionals changing in the Bowlers’ Room and the amateurs upstairs in the No.1 Dressing Room, from where they would then meet later at the Pavilion gates when entering the field. An end to this procedure had been discussed by members of the MCC Committee the previous winter but there had been no announcement. When Robbie arrived he thought the situation was ridiculous and he immediately went downstairs to talk to the secretary, Colonel Rait Kerr, in his office. The colonel said that any decision altering such an ingrained custom had to be taken by the full MCC Committee. Robbie went back upstairs and packed his bag before returning to the Colonel’s office and saying that as Squadron-Leader Bill Edrich, DFC, and