Under The Captaincy of Bradman
The following 1936–37 season in Australia, saw more success for Fingleton, although with the return of Bradman as captain, team harmony became strained. Gubby Allen's Englishmen toured Australia, and after failing to pass 10 in his first three innings for the season, Fingleton scored 39, 42 and 56 in matches for New South Wales and an Australian XI against the tourists.
Fingleton became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings when he scored 100 in the first innings of the First Test at Brisbane, reaching the mileston on 7 December. He top-scored as Australia replied to England's 358 with 234. Fingleton's feats was later equalled by Alan Melville, (whose four centuries were scored on either side of World War II) and surpassed by the West Indian, Everton Weekes in 1948–49. Fingleton's run ended in the second innings, falling for a golden duck as Australia were skittled for 58 on a sticky wicket and crushed by 322 runs.
After scoring 12 in a total of 80 as Australia were caught on a sticky wicket, Fingleton then made 73 in the second innings of the Second Test in Sydney, one of few Australians to resist as the home side fell to an innings defeat after being forced to follow on. Australia were facing a dilemma in the Third Test in Melbourne. The home team scored 200, Fingleton contributing 38, before rain caused a sticky wicket and England declared at 9/76. However, Australia still had to bat on the treacherous surface, captain Bradman reshuffled the batting lineup, putting the bowlers in first and Fingleton and himself in at Nos. 6 and 7 to save them for more favourable batting conditions. The bowlers managed to survive to the end of the day's play and the wicket improved overnight. The pair came together with the score at 5/97 and made a Test record sixth-wicket partnership of 346, with Fingleton making 136. It turned the Test and saw Australia ended at 564. The hosts bowled England out for 323 to win the match by 365 runs and prevent England from taking an unassailable 3–0 lead. Fingleton did not pass 20 in his last three innings of the series, as Australia won the remaining two matches to win the series. Fingleton ended with 398 runs at 44.22 in the Tests, and 631 runs at 33.21 overall.
Fingleton followed up with 862 runs at 50.70 in the 1937–38 domestic season, with two centuries and six fifties. This effort placed him third in the run-scoring aggregates for the season. He saved his best for arch-rivals Victoria, scoring 59 and 160 to salvage a draw after New South Wales had conceded a first innings lead of 231. New south Wales went on to win the title. Fingleton finished his season with 66, 1, 47 and 109 in two warm-up matches for the Australian team against Western Australia before they headed to England for the 1938 Ashes series.
In 1938, Fingleton made what turned out to be his international farewell as Australia toured England, a series in which he found runs difficult to come by. He later attributed this to his inability to play the pull shot. However, Fingleton started the tour well. He passed 30 in each of his first seven innings on English soil, and converted three of these starts into centuries, scoring 124 against Oxford University, 111 against Cambridge University and 123 not out against Hampshire in the first month of cricket. Fingleton's form tapered just at the wrong time, falling three times for single figures in the last two matches before the Tests. He carried this into the First Test at Trent Bridge, where he made only 9 and 40 in a high-scoring draw in which every innings passed 400.
An infamous incident occurred in Australia's second innings. As Australia were 247 runs behind on the first innings and forced to follow on, they played for a draw and Brown and Fingleton batted slowly in the second innings. Sections of the crowd heckled his slow batting by using a slow hand clap. Bradman then sent Mervyn Waite out to deliver orders to the openers that they should back away from their positions and hold up proceedings until the barracking stopped. Fingleton said that he was not perturbed by the crowd but obeyed; umpire Frank Chester and England captain Wally Hammond had no issues with this. At one point, Fingleton theatrically decided to take off his gloves, put down his bat and sit down on the pitch and refusing to resume before the gallery quietened, but this only caused a huge uproar. Wisden later criticised him, saying that he lost "all true sense of the situation...an extraordinary action on the part of a cricket in a Test match." They regarded the gesture as disrespectful as a majority of the spectators had not heckled him.
Fingleton rediscovered his form between the Tests, scoring 121 against the Gentlemen of England and 96 against Lancashire. Again however, Fingleton was unable to maintain the momentum in the Tests, making 31 and 4 against England in the Second Test at Lord's, which ended in another draw.
Fingleton then aggregated only 36 in four innings in next three county fixtures, and after the Third Test at Old Trafford never started due to persistent rain, he was concussed in the match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. A long hop from Waite was pulled into his head at point-blank range, and Fingleton managed to duck enough that it glanced his forehead and went into the air, to the cries of "catch it" from Bradman. The ball did not go to hand and Fingleton was hospitalised.
Fingleton made 30 and 9 in a low-scoring Fourth Test at Headingley, which Australia won by five wickets to retain the Ashes. He remained unproductive in the lead-up to the final Test, scoring 51 in three first-class innings. His Test career ended disappointingly at The Oval in "Hutton's Match". In the course of England's marathon innings of 7/903 he sustained a leg injury, which prevented him from batting in either Australian innings. With Bradman also unable to bat, Australia collapsed to the heaviest defeat in Test history, by an innings and 579 runs. It capped off a tour that ended poorly after a promising start. Fingleton made 123 runs in six innings at an average of 20.50. With the outbreak of World War II, Australia was not to play another Test until the 1945–46 season, ending Fingleton's international career.
Fingleton returned to Australia and played in only three matches in the 1938–39 domestic season, scoring 81 runs at 16.20, before being sidelined at the end of December. His top-score for the season was 45 as New South Wales lost by four wickets to Victoria. In 1939–40, Fingleton had another quiet season with only 39 runs at 6.50 in three matches. He passed single figures only once in six innings and ended with a duck and three as New South Wales lost to arch-rivals Victoria by 82 runs. Fingleton retired at the end of the season.
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