(and is) the best I have ever seen". Sutcliffe expressed the view that if W G Grace was as good as Jack Hobbs, "then he must have been wonderful". He said that Hobbs' earliest advice to him had been simply: "Play your own game". Sutcliffe commented: "Four words – they counted for so much. They told me all I wanted to know". Ian Peebles wrote that Sutcliffe's association with Hobbs "is judged, by results and all-round efficiency in all conditions", the greatest of all first-wicket partnerships and "will probably never be excelled". Peebles said that there lay between the two an "extraordinary understanding, manifested in their perfect and unhesitating judgment of the short single". The last Test match in which Hobbs and Sutcliffe played together was the final one at The Oval, Hobbs' home ground, in the 1930 series against Australia. But the partnership was revived at the 1931 Scarborough Festival when they produced two double-century stands, first for the Players against the Gentlemen and then for H D G Leveson-Gower's XI against the New Zealand tourists. Their last partnership was for the Players at Lord's in 1932, an innings in which Hobbs carried his bat for 161 not out. Hobbs' biographer Ronald Mason summarised the association of Hobbs and Sutcliffe thus: Behind them were nine years of wonderful attainment, 26 opening partnerships of 100 or more; a legendary technique and repute unequalled by any other pair; the lean, active quizzical Hobbs and the neat, wiry imperturbable Sutcliffe, who set a standard that can serve as a guide, but defied all attempts at emulation. Hobbs and Sutcliffe made 15 century opening partnerships for England in Test matches, including 11 against Australia, and 11 in other first-class matches. Sutcliffe and Hutton Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career. Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protégé but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel –