Completing The Cycle Of A Very Long Career In Cricket

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 305, 29 December 1934, Page 10

Completing The Cycle Of A Very Long Career In Cricket

ONE OF THE GREATEST BOWLERS IN TEST MATCHES REJOINS OLD CLUB

JpORTY years ago a young man named Sidney F. Barnes, was playing for the Smethwick Cricket Club, in the Birmingham Cricket League. He had been born in Birmingham. In 1895 and 1896 he played in two or three first-class matches, for Warwickshire, but did not distinguish himself, and he went back into the comparative obscurity of league cricket. Presently lie obtained an engagement with a club in the Lancashire Cricket League. There A. C. MacLaren, who became captain of England’s eleven in 1899, saw him in a match. In 1901 MacLaren was asked by the Australian cricket authorities to take a team to Australia; his happened to be the last team to go to Australia that was not selected by the Marylebone. Cricket Club. MacLaren invited Barnes to join the team. So one of the greatest bowlers known to the game came into Test cricket; many Australian players of very long experience consider him to be the finest bowler who ever has played for England in their country.

innings, but to make up for that he took 17 in one match and 14 in another. * * Except in 1902 and 1903 Barnes played only intermittently in first-class county cricket; he did not care for it, and in some seasons before the war he did not play in it at all. The season of 1914 was his last in this sphere of the game. Yet in all his first-class cricket he took 653 wickets at a cost of only 16.93 runs each. He preferred second-class cricket, in - which he played for Staffordshire; this permitted him also to play for league clubs. His remarkable feats in various classes of cricket are quite too numerous to discuss, but two curious performances of his may be mentioned. Once, for Staffordshire against Northumberland, he took 16 wickets in one day, for 93 runs. A month later, when playing for Staffordshire against Cheshire, the number of runs hit off him was smaller than the number of wickets he took; he captured 14 wickets for 13 runs in the match —eight for six and six for seven—the opposing team making only 29 and 14 runs.

A statement that Barnes played for England without any previous experience of first-class cricket has been made often. It is not quite correct, as he played in those two or three matches for Warwickshire, and also in a match or two for Lancashire in 191)1. But he was practically unknown to cricket enthusiasts outside of Warwickshire and Lancashire. Before he went to Australia he had taken only nine wickets in first-class cricket, at a cost of 33 runs each. Yet in the Australian tour of the 1901-02 season Barnes took 19 wickets in the Test matches —more than any other member of the team took —and headed the bowling averages with a cost of 17.00 runs each. In all the matches of the tour he took 41 wickets at 1G.48 runs a wicket. MacLaren was bitterly disappointed that he could not persuade K. S. Ranjitsinhji, C. B. Fry, R. E. Foster, W, Rhodes, and G. 11. Hirst to join his team, and that the team’s batting failed too often, but he had reason to be very proud of his acumen in selecting Barnes, who would have done better still in Australia but for an accident. For all that, Barnes played in only one Test match in England when an Australian team next visited that country; that was the third of the series, and in it he took six for 49 and one for 50. He was not taken on the next visit to Australia, but he was on the one after that. The war ended his career in Test cricket. In the 20 matches (seven in England, 13 in Australia) in which he played for England against Australia he took 10G wickets at 21.58 runs each. Barnes played in seven matches against South Africa (three in England, four in South Africa) and in these games he took the astonishing number of 83 wickets, at a cost of only 9.85 runs each. Only once in the seven matches did he take fewer than 10 wickets in South Africa’s two

Barnes is a tall man, but the secret of his great success was his perfect command of length allied with control of spin and flight. M. A. Noble, the old Australian captain, has described Barnes as the world’s greatest bowler. Noble asserted that no one could spin a ball as Barnes did. “Whether to leg or the off. it spun just as viciously,” said Noble, “and he could diddle you out by his flight alone.” Yet Barnes was a fast-medium bowler! What would cricket not give to-day for a bowler of his pace who could keep such a command of length, let alone spin and flight the ball!

The reason for these notes about Barnes is the news that now, at the age of 61. Barnes has been signed on, for next season, by his first club, Smethwick. So, after 40 years, the great bowler goes back to his native town, to complete the cycle of his very long and varied career in the game. A. L. C.