Like Constantine, who also played League Cricket, Martindale chose to suspend his contract with Burnley for 1939 to allow his selection for West Indies. The team toured England that season and Martindale resumed his place in the team alongside Constantine and Hylton as the spearhead of the West Indies' pace attack. Unlike his previous tour in 1933, he was not effective and Wisden reported that he "fell off in pace and accuracy". Despite his greater experience and his time in league cricket, Bridgette Lawrence notes that he had passed his peak. With Hylton also out of sorts, only Constantine of the pace attack was in form, and he took 103 wickets in the season, as Martindale had done six years earlier. Martindale's own figures were disappointing: he took only 46 wickets in the season at the high average of 34.50 and only four wickets in the three-Test series. His one game of success was the match against Leicestershire when he took five wickets for 57 runs in the county's only innings. With war imminent, the final matches of the tour were left unplayed, and the third Test at The Oval proved to be Martindale's last appearance in first-class cricket.