Indies representative side three times. The first Barbados game was a dramatic success for Francis and his fast-bowling partner Herman Griffith; they each took nine wickets as the MCC side was beaten by an innings, and Francis' second-innings six for 21 was at that stage the best innings analysis of his career. The match with West Indies that followed immediately afterwards, however, proved almost the opposite, and Francis took only one wicket as Wally Hammond hit a double-century and the West Indian side collapsed twice, to be rescued from a heavy defeat by rain. A second match between MCC and Barbados followed this and fortunes were again reversed, with MCC this time salvaging a late draw after being outplayed: Francis in this match took seven MCC first-innings wickets for 50 runs and these were the best innings figures of his whole career. Francis appeared in the other two representative matches for the West Indies, one in Trinidad and the other in British Guiana, with mixed success. In the three-match series, he took eight wickets at a high average of 37.25; in other first-class matches that season, including the two Barbados v MCC games, he took 18 wickets at an average of 8.11. The 1928 tour of England The 1926 Imperial Cricket Conference decided that representative matches between the established Test nations – England, Australia and South Africa – and three new sides from India, the West Indies and New Zealand would henceforward be considered as Test matches, and the 1928 West Indies team was the first to make this transition. Francis, along with his Barbadian partner Griffith and Learie Constantine, who had toured England in 1923, were the three fast bowlers in the side, but the tour as a whole was a disappointment: "So far from improving upon the form of their predecessors, the team of 1928 fell so much below it that everybody was compelled to realise that the playing of Test Matches between England and West Indies was a mistake," wrote Wisden. Francis "although still fast, had not quite the pace or accuracy he possessed in 1923". With the side heavily reliant on their fast bowlers, the slip fielders and wicketkeepers "blundered time and again". Griffith alone of the three fast bowlers made an impact in the three Test matches, taking 11 wickets; Constantine, a failure with both bat and ball in the Tests, compensated with 1381 runs