SIGNED UP AT 61!

Northern Advocate, 29 December 1934, Page 2

SIGNED UP AT 61!

SID BARNES STILL GOING STRONGLY. ANOTHER LEAGUE CLUB. Cricketers, like Old Soldiers, never die ''comments a London writer). This reflection is prompted by the announcement that Sidney Barnes, sixtyone years old, has signed up for Smethwick Cricket Club for next season. It was with Smethwick that Barnes started in cricket forty years ago. Now he is going back to them to the discomfiture of Birmingham League batsmen. . It was as a youngster of twentythree that Archie MacLaren, then captain of England, spotted Barnes in a Lancashire League game. He was so impressed that he straight away earmarked him for his team to visit Australia. That MacLaren’s intuition was uncanny is shown by the fact that Barnes, who, before the trip had only played in three first-class matches, proved the biggest success of the tour. He took nineteen test wickets for seventeen runs each. In a test match at the Oval, Barnes bowled five men out for thirty. Another of his amazing feats in a test match against South Africa was thirteen wickets for sixty-seven runs. For a bowler of such ability, Barnes appeared very little in first-class cricket and it used to be maintained that his unfamiliarity made him so dangerous. In test matches he took 189 wickets for 16 runs apiece. In all firstclass games he captured 535 wickets for 17 runs each. Barnes is a man of extraordinary fitness, but as his action in bowling is an easy one—the whole of his success being built on flight and spin—he has not taken a heavy toll of his stamina.