Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

29 Chapter Five Gathering Clouds Middlesex had a new captain in 1939, Robins having stood down because of the pressures of the insurance business. Scotsman Ian Peebles was a once outstanding wrist-spinner whom even Bradman had found difficult. He was a different character from Robins and had played relatively little in recent years, but this didn’t affect the county’s performances. With Edrich now scoring prolifically at No.3, Syd moved up as Jack’s regular partner. However, although Jack made the progress that had been hoped of him, his aggressive and elegant strokeplay suggesting a Test player of the future, Syd performed moderately, only scoring three fifties, 37 and it was not until the end of August in Middlesex’s last match before the war that they put on a hundred together. Terence Prittie, in an essay written whilst he was a prisoner-of-war in Germany, suggested that, despite the excellence of his technique, ‘an inelegant flat-footedness’ had prevented Syd yet fulfilling the early promise of his Second XI days and that ‘his footwork was frequently slow and awkward.’ 38 Although the Munich agreement of 1938 had bought some time, the likelihood of war was in the minds of many, especially as the Government had already introduced a limited form of military conscription. Reviewing the season in Wisden , R.C.Robertson-Glasgow said that ‘the rumble of War rolled louder and louder’. In a sense, he said, it had been a strangely happy season, ‘as is customary when great issues hang in the balance, men set themselves to a quiet but determined enjoyment. They turned to cricket as to an old friend … .’ It was also the season of the eight-ball over. The experiment was deemed unsuccessful, mainly because of the strain on bowlers, and was not repeated after the war. Jack’s maiden first-class century finally came in early May in a rain- affected draw at Fenner’s, where a typical early-season Anglian ‘whistling wind’ blew down the pitch. The Times had now changed its opinion of him and predicted that it would be the first of many. It also commended the University’s fielding but thought that ‘many more runs would have been saved if some fieldsmen had worn nailed boots instead of tennis shoes’! It has to be said that, failing to win a match all season, it wasn’t a strong Cambridge University side. Scoring all around the wicket, Jack made 106 in an untroubled two hours 20 minutes before he was bowled by slow left-armer Bertram Carris, who had already played a few matches 37 Wisden reported ‘sometimes unlucky, (he) did not fulfil expectations’. 38 Prittie, T.C.F., Mainly Middlesex, Hutchinsons Library of Sports and Pastimes, 1947, in a comment made in Prittie’s report on the Middlesex v Essex match at Lord’s. After the War, however, when Syd was at around the height of his powers, Wisden commended him for his ‘fine footwork’.