Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

26 received entertainment fit for a holiday. Sussex had been championship runners-up three times in the early 1930s. Now, without the great Maurice Tate to lead their attack, they weren’t quite the same force. Jack opened with Edrich in place of Syd and the new partners immediately hit it off, in perfect weather putting on 129 in 100 minutes. Jack batted at a decent rate, scoring 81 in two hours 20 minutes and, if it hadn’t been for a brilliant catch by Jim Cornford at short leg, might have completed his century. He was followed by a Walter Robins’ two-hour 137, and spectacular hitting by Jim Smith who went in at ten minutes past six and scored 69 runs in 20 minutes. Amongst all this carnage Compton, a week away from a maiden Test century, made only one. However, he took a couple of useful wickets and helped bowl Middlesex to victory. Jack had made an immediate impression on the critics. For example, E.M.Wellings, writing about the first morning’s play for the early edition of the London Evening News , reported that he had seen a player who ‘may become as good as Edrich and Compton’. He had a ‘delightful batting style’ and was in some ways ‘a more enterprising edition of J.W.Hearne’. Others would also make the Hearne comparison: B.J.Evans in the rival London paper The Star speculated ‘Have Middlesex discovered a rival to Hutton as opening batsman for England?’ The pitch had played well, but it wasn’t always so. During the season there would be whispers of a mysterious Lord’s ridge that caused the ball to fly; whispers that would persist after the war. In an infamous match against Yorkshire in July there would be various breakages and in their second innings the visitors, already missing Hutton and Gibb absent hurt, also quickly lost Leyland with a fractured left thumb. Jack had begun the match well, his brilliant catch at backward point sending the great Herbert Sutcliffe back without scoring, but pictures in the press also showed him doubled up later in the day, having been struck amidships by Bill Bowes. Making the Grade Victim of the ridge? Middlesex v Yorkshire at Lord’s in July 1938. A newspaper cutting shows Jack having been struck amidships by Bill Bowes with Yorkshire captain Brian Sellers, hands on hips, observing from short leg.