 He made his Test debut in the first match of the Ashes series at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. He took match figures of 2 / 65, his first wicket being Jack Hobbs, and in his first Test innings as a batsman, he hit the first ball for a boundary but was dismissed off the next ball, before scoring 49 in the second innings as Australia chased 428 for victory. McCabe and Don Bradman were scoring quickly and had taken the score to 3 / 229 when McCabe lofted Maurice Tate towards mid-on. Syd Copley, a member of the ground staff who was acting as a substitute fielder dived forward and took a difficult catch. McCabe's dismissal sparked a collapse of 7 / 104 as England took a 93-run win. McCabe scored 44 and an unbeaten 25 as Australia squared the series with a seven-wicket triumph in the Second Test at Lords. McCabe made 30 in a rain-affected draw in the Third Test, before scoring four and taking 4 / 41 in the Fourth Test at Old Trafford, removing Ranjitsinhji, Maurice Leyland, Maurice Tate and Ian Peebles to reduce England to 8 / 251 in another wash out. With the series locked at 1 – 1, the Fifth and final Test at The Oval was a timeless Test. McCabe scored his first Test half-century of 54 as Australia piled on 695 to win by an innings and reclaim the Ashes 2 – 1. McCabe took one wicket in the deciding match, bowling leading English batsman Wally Hammond for 13. In all, McCabe scored 210 runs at 35.00 and took eight wickets at 27.62 in the Tests, and aggregated 1012 runs at 32.64 and took 26 wickets at 27.80 for the whole tour. This made him the fifth highest run-scorer for the tour. However, he was unable to register a century on tour, his highest score being 96. He continued his habit of failing to convert his starts into centuries in the tour matches after the start of the Tests. In one stretch of eight county innings, he registered scores between 34 and 79 seven times, and he ended with seven fifties for the tour. Nevertheless, Wisden praised his attacking ability to disrupt the length of opposition bowlers. On two occasions, McCabe took more than two wickets in an innings.
