Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

65 Chapter Eleven Style Jack and Syd had now established themselves as probably the best opening pair in the Championship; others might argue for Lancashire’s Washbrook and Place. This is therefore an appropriate point at which to attempt to assess their technical merits. Many famous partnerships have succeeded as much because of their differences as their similarities − think Hobbs and Sutcliffe, Morecambe and Wise, Lennon and McCartney − and the Robertson Brown pairing clearly presented bowlers with very different challenges: the former a batsman of the highest class, stylish and technically correct; the latter not a stylist but, from a pleasantly open stance, pugnacious and purposeful. Attacking from the start, at their best they provided the perfect platform for Edrich and Compton. David Lemmon thought that ‘There has been no more exciting opening pair in the history of county cricket.’ This is a rather dogmatic assessment with which I’m sure not everybody would agree, particularly those who more recently remember seeing Greenidge and Richards striding out for Hampshire, but it is an indication of the pair’s effect not only on opposing bowlers, but also spectators. By all accounts there were few, if any, more elegant batsmen on the county circuit than Jack Robertson. His batting was based on economy of movement and, although he never appeared to hit the ball hard, his timing enabled him to beat the field consistently. Denis Compton thought him ‘as near technical perfection as any player I have ever watched’. Terence Prittie thought there were ‘no rough edges to [his] style’ and that he appeared graceful even when beaten or dismissed. John Arlott described him as ‘a neatly made, trimly turned-out, unobtrusive man, [he] was considered in the county dressing-rooms the finest player of the new ball in England at this time. A craftsman of stylish method and neat footwork, he was quick to move on to the back foot and force the short ball while, when he went forward, his defensive play and driving were equally correct.’ Arlott added: ‘Always keen to seize the initiative from bowlers, he scored more quickly than most opening batsmen because of his all-round power, to on and off, forward and back. For all his modest bearing, he batted, especially against fast-medium bowling, with an air of brisk mastery … .’ 83 Like many others, Trevor Bailey considered Jack clearly unlucky not to have made more appearances for England, although he did think that 83 There are many excellent photographs of Jack batting in contemporary cricket literature, but particularly fine examples of the technical correctness of his batting can be found in the instructional book Improve Your Cricket by Denis Foster, Findon Publications, 1948, which is based upon photographs for which he specially posed.