Walter Robins, English cricketer and footballer (d. 1968)
Robert Walter Vivian Robins (3 June 1906 – 12 December 1968) was an English cricketer and cricket administrator, who played for Cambridge University, Middlesex, and England. A right-handed batsman and right-arm leg-break and googly bowler, he was known for his attacking style of play. He captained both his county and his country; after the Second World War, he served several terms as a Test selector.
Born into a cricketing family, Robins attended Highgate School, where he earned a reputation as one of the outstanding schoolboy cricketers of his generation. He made his debut in first-class cricket, for Middlesex, in 1925. At Cambridge he won cricket "blues" in each of his three years, 1926 to 1928. He played his first Test match, against South Africa, in 1929, and thereafter played intermittently for England in each of the seasons up to 1937 – he played all his cricket as an amateur, which constrained his availability for both county and country. He toured Australia as vice-captain to G.O. Allen in 1936–37, and assumed the captaincy of the international side for three matches in 1937. He captained Middlesex from 1935 to 1938, again after the war in 1946 and 1947, and for a final season in 1950. In 1947 he led Middlesex to the County Championship.
Robins was a member of the Test selectors' panel in 1946–48, in 1954, and finally in 1962–64 when he acted as chairman. He was controversially involved in an unsuccessful attempt, in 1954, to replace the current England captain, Len Hutton, with the young and inexperienced David Sheppard. He was a strong advocate of "brighter cricket", to an extent that sometimes failed to recognise the realities of international cricket in the postwar era, and put him at odds with the players of a later generation. This problem was evident when Robins served as manager of the touring team to the West Indies in 1959–60, when his forthright, autocratic approach adversely affected his relationship with the team's captain and vice-captain, Peter May and Colin Cowdrey.
Whatever his difficulties in coming to terms with the cricket of a later era, Robins was widely recognised as one of the most dynamic cricketers of his time, a fact that was acknowledged in the tributes paid after his death, in 1968, by his former playing colleagues. His son, Charles Robins, played for Middlesex from 1953 to 1960, as a leg-spin and googly bowler in the manner of his father.