12 NOVEMBER 1965, Page 9

No Sleep Till Morn Only a month now till the

first Test opens at Brisbane on December 10. So far the MCC side has played miles above its station, with Barber the brightest star. He is being compared now with Woolley and with Graeme Pollock, which seems very strange after his last dim season in England. I remember being told before the team sailed by one of the very greatest of England's former Test players that Barber was sure to fail in Australia—'because he is too gay and flashy.' Yet this seems the very quality that is bringing him a bucketful of runs. So one expert is confounded, and any day now one of our fast bowlers will, produce Tyson-like figures to silence my lamentations about the absence of Trueman and Statham from the touring team. I find I get very little sleep when the MCC is playing a Test series in Australia. I lie awake most of the night waiting for the broadcast to start, and then drowse happily from six to eight a.m. listening to my transistor. Oddly enough, my wife thinks this is unreasonable.