Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

11 Introduction It is in the final first-class game that Robinson’s team took its place centre- stage in the history of cricket. After the Australian tourists of 1921 got their noses bloodied at Old Buckenham, MacLaren went on to captain the England XI which finally lowered the colours of the previously invincible tourists at Eastbourne. The link between the two games was nicely covered by Ronald Mason in his book Warwick Armstrong’s Australians (and I shall be returning to it in chapter six) but, alas, he failed to place the former game in the context of Robinson’s endeavours. He granted the host ‘a pale minor immortality by association’ but stated that ‘nobody now remembers [Robinson] at all’. Robinson certainly deserves to be remembered, if only ‘by association’, and this study aims to ensure that he is not forgotten.