Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

47 day, but Lakenham was a quick-drying ground and, once a fresh wicket had been cut and rolled, play could have started by midday. Unfortunately the storm had disrupted communications with Old Buckenham; neither telephone nor telegram links were functioning and a motorcycle had to be sent to summon the home team while the tourists were left twiddling their thumbs. Play started after lunch before a few hundred spectators. There was bright sunshine for a while but then heavy rain returned at 4pm to terminate play for the day. The third day saw around five hours’ play but, despite 25 wickets falling for just 290 runs, a result never looked on the cards. There was, at least, a decent crowd of 2,000 or so spectators on the last day but the Eastern Daily Press reported that ‘the expenses of the match were heavy, and the cricket loving public owe a debt of gratitude to the gentlemen who arranged and guaranteed the match’. As stated in the Introduction, Lionel was undoubtedly one of these ‘gentlemen’. With the infrastructure of Norfolk having been placed under extreme pressure by the torrents of rain, the Australian tourists had difficulty making their way out of the county and on to Canterbury for their next game; they had to be driven by car to Wymondham before they were able to catch a train. Returning to his favourite pastime of beating up local cricket clubs, Lionel enjoyed another low-key, single-innings win over Dereham. Kenneth Hutchings scored 59 and took four wickets but the match was only notable for Robinson himself making his second appearance of the year and his only visit to the crease. Batting at number ten, he scored only a single out of a total of 147 and, as in his previous appearance against Carrow, neither took a wicket or held a catch. The season culminated with the visit of the South Africans to Old Buckenham for a game which was deemed to have been of first-class status. Before describing this match it is worth considering the opinions of the correspondents of the national newspapers on Lionel’s wicket. The Guardian stated that the pitch was in ‘capital condition, but rather fast, and batsmen found the pace too much for them’. The Daily Telegraph declared that Old Buckenham Hall was a ‘splendid cricket ground ... many batsmen being troubled by the fast pace of the pitch’. The Times made it unanimous when it referred to the pitch on the first day: ‘after the slow grounds on which they have had to play lately the batsmen found the rather fast turf too much for them’. That all three papers should go out of their way to comment on the quick pace of the wicket when none gave the match extensive coverage, is surely an indication that the wicket was genuinely pacy and that, whoever was involved in its creation and whenever the work was carried out, it was already possessed of the characteristics desired by Lionel Robinson in time for its first appearance in a first-class match. 37 No doubt the speed of the Old Buckenham wicket would have been a surprise to the touring South Africans, but to what extent the home team would have been forewarned is not entirely clear. Archie had asked 37 A modern writer, Patrick Ferriday, suggests that the strip may even have been a little too fast, stating that the wicket was ‘hard and fast enough to shock almost everyone into submission’. Putting Old Buckenham on the cricketing map