Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

75 the cricketing authorities. This is not to contradict Gideon Haigh, however, for significant amounts almost certainly changed hands, with the tour manager, Syd Smith, being the obvious point of contact to help things happen for Lionel. Smith himself implicitly denies this; in his thorough book chronicling the tour he includes a copy of the accounts and these disclose that Lionel Robinson handed over a mere £150 to the tourists. To put this into perspective, the Australians generally received three or four times this “fee” as their share of receipts from a first-class tour match, with fixtures against well-supported counties (such as Surrey, Middlesex, Yorkshire and Kent) bringing in over £1,000 each and the Tests even more. Robinson even appeared to pay out less than Cumberland, whose one- day match is listed by Smith as costing them £160. Even when Lionel’s generous hospitality is taken into account it is clear that Smith is asking posterity to believe that the tourists agreed to shoehorn a three-day trip to Old Buckenham into a packed schedule for an absolute pittance. Most unlikely! Alas, more than ninety years on, one can but speculate about such matters but it seems probable that the Australian cricketers and their manager will have “found” some crisp bank notes awaiting them in their bedrooms. The friendship between the two skippers could well have aided the reaching of an agreement as to who received exactly how much “boot money”. The taxman failed to find out and so shall we. The first day was an almost total anticlimax as the weather was as uncooperative as one might have feared for a game starting as early as 4 May. There were barely 15 minutes of play, starting at noon, as heavy rain and even snow prevented much activity; the tourists barely had time to open their innings after Armstrong had won the toss and decided to bat. Even though a north wind meant that it was also extremely cold 56 , a hopeful crowd of around 2,000 attended; many were brought from the station by a non-stop convoy of ponies-and-traps organised and paid for by Lionel but many arrived by motor car, as did the players. Play was not abandoned for the day until 4.15pm but it is not clear how many souls were both hardy and optimistic enough to remain until that point. On the second day (which was dry but still windy and chilly) the Australians continued to bat but made only 136 (which would turn out to be their lowest score of the tour). They started uncertainly and then collapsed totally, their last six batsmen accumulating just 13 runs between them. Only skipper Armstrong, with an unbeaten 51, compiled over 100 minutes, put up much of a fight. They didn’t have to bat on a typically quick Old Buckenham wicket; the strip used was described as ‘none too easy’ but it was far from spiteful and 136 was clearly a below par score. There had been fears that the wicket would turn into a difficult, drying one on the second day but these worries turned out to be unfounded. Obtaining late swing in both directions, Johnny Douglas led the attack and bowled unchanged to end with figures of six for 64; Clem Gibson’s fast-medium 56 It was so cold that Charlie Macartney, who was being billeted at the Royal Hotel in Attleborough, appealed to Lionel for some coal as, with a coal strike on, the hotel was freezing. As would be expected, Lionel responded instantly and a half a hundredweight of coal was carried back to Attleborough ‘in high glee’. The visit of the Australians In 1921