Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

73 Caribbean declared at 514 for four with two of the Ws, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott, making centuries, cutting and driving with ‘amazing power’. With scores of 51 and 90 Jack, in modern parlance, hit the ground running. Wisden commented that ‘apart from Howorth and Place none of the tourists revealed his true county form’, a surprising assessment given that Jack made second-highest score in the first innings and easily top- scored in the second. To be fair, he did score a little slowly, a problem he attributed to the extra pace of the pitch affecting his timing. By the First Test Wisden had however conceded that he had ‘showed his class in this type of cricket’. In the first innings, excelling with the cut and sweep, he made 80 and, with Joe Hardstaff (98), was the only batsman to pass 30. 100 In the second he batted skilfully on a treacherous, rain-affected pitch to make an undefeated 51 out of 86 for four before a deluge saved England from probable defeat. It was West Indies’ first Test for over eight years and seven of the side were making their debuts, as were five of the England side. Three of the newcomers − Laker, Walcott and Weekes 101 − would go on to become cricket greats. Moving south to Port of Spain, Trinidad, England played the next Test on the jute matting of the Queen’s Park Oval, one of cricket’s most beautiful settings with the northern hills forming an impressive backdrop. Trinidadian Gerry Gomez captained West Indies in place of the injured Headley. Having already run out of opening batsmen, England had little option but to press their reserve wicketkeeper, the Sussex amateur Billy Griffith, into service as Jack’s partner. Sadly the union did not last long. England batted first on a beautiful day but with only five on the board Griffith played the ball towards cover and Jack, who may have been a little late to react, failed to make his ground as the bowler Berkeley Gaskin (who had made his Test debut at Bridgetown, aged nearly forty) followed up and threw down the stumps. Griffith famously then went on to make 140. After 205 first-class innings he had finally made a century, and on his Test debut. England’s 362 was headed by West Indies whose 497 was mainly due to 37-year-old George Carew, who made a dazzling 107 batting in a brown felt hat; Andy Ganteaume, a 27-year-old clerk in the Trinidad civil service, who made a more sedate 112 on his Test debut; and another debutant, Frank Worrell, who made 97. Such was the strength of West Indian batting that Ganteaume never played another Test, and Carew just two. Griffith went early in England’s second innings, but this time Jack stood firm for nearly six hours and became the fourth opener in the match to make a century. Without his 133, more than half the runs from the bat, England would have surely lost. He was finally dismissed by Wilf Ferguson, a stocky leg-spinner who took 11 wickets in the match and 23 wickets in the series, but who played little Test cricket after the England tour. After first experiencing the delights of the famous Trinidad Carnival, the party moved on to the South American mainland. For the Third Test, 100 Jack was leg-before to ‘Foffie’ Williams; the fifth time in succession and the seventh time in eight innings that he had been so dismissed. 101 Weekes’ century in the final Test was the first in a record run of five in consecutive innings.