Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

27 Apart from missing some matches with leg injury, Jack played regularly for the rest of the season, partnering Edrich unless he was away on Test duty, in which case he and Syd opened. He put on another century with Edrich just over a week later at Bristol, taking the score to 128 in 90 minutes before he was run out for 43. With Middlesex scoring 573 − Smith 66 in 18 minutes − and winning comfortably by an innings, Jack didn’t get the chance of batting again. Despite failing completely, Edrich retained his place in the England side against Australia. However, he continued to score consistently for Middlesex and he and Jack put on their third century partnership of the season at Hove in the return Bank Holiday match. Middlesex had been set 300 to win, the highest score of the match, and under a cloudless sky and before a large crowd, and no doubt accompanied by wheeling seagulls, the pair led the chase on the second afternoon with 125 before Jack played on to the fast-medium of Cornford for 46. The match was over by 12.15 next day, Middlesex winning by three wickets, mainly thanks to another onslaught from the promoted Smith who hit 57 in 35 minutes. Jack and Syd came together for the first time as partners in the Championship against Hampshire at Lord’s at the beginning of June. Adding 50 in the first innings (Syd with 65 making his maiden first-class fifty), and a brisk 58 in 40 minutes in the second (Jack top scoring with 73), they contributed fully to their side’s eventual victory. Hampshire were bowled out on the last afternoon. With seven wickets Robins did most of the damage but, with time tight because of rain, Jack chipped in with the vital wicket of top-scorer Donald Walker 33 trapped leg-before for 52. In his first innings Jack had been dismissed by Hampshire stalwart Lofty Herman, whose son Bob would later be one of his charges when he captained Middlesex seconds. Another Edrich absence on Test duty − spending all four days at Old Trafford watching the rain fall − gave Jack and Syd the opportunity to post their first century partnership. Middlesex batted first at Trent Bridge under a watery sky against a weak Nottinghamshire attack led by a not fully fit Bill Voce. The Saturday crowd was a sparse one, no doubt deterred by the unpromising weather. After rain, copious amounts of sawdust were required but the pair were not discomforted, adding 110 in two and a quarter hours before Syd went for 46. Jack must have had hopes of a maiden first-class hundred, but he was leg-before nine runs short to Nottinghamshire captain George Heane who would go on to take a then career best six for 98 with his right-arm medium pace. Jack had been especially strong on the leg side, hitting eight 4s and hooking Voce into the car park for six to reach his fifty. He would later turn the tables on Heane, trapping him stumped two short of his own fifty when his side followed on in a match eventually won by Middlesex by nine wickets. Later, at Old Trafford, in the match in which Syd made his maiden hundred, the pair fell five short of a second century partnership. Jack’s contribution 33 Walker, another victim of the War, was killed in a night flight over Holland three years later. Making the Grade