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SF Barnes

the big bambino

International Captain
My wife has scanned the Barnes' photo onto our pc with a file name Barnes. She tried to insert the photo into this text box by cutting and pasting but without success. Anyone with any idea how to upload a scanned file from a pc to this website?
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Hey does anyone have this book by White or this one by Searle on Barnes? Both look like they would have a lot of good stuff on him.
 

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Hey does anyone have this book by White or this one by Searle on Barnes? Both look like they would have a lot of good stuff on him.
Yes, I have them both - I certainly wouldn't discourage you from buying either but the best book on Barnes (in fact the only other one) is SF Barnes - Master Bowler, by Leslie Duckworth - it was published in the mid 60s
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yes, I have them both - I certainly wouldn't discourage you from buying either but the best book on Barnes (in fact the only other one) is SF Barnes - Master Bowler, by Leslie Duckworth - it was published in the mid 60s
Thanks Fred :)
 

watson

Banned
Accidently found this gem of an article while googling Duckworth's book;

The bowler of the century, 1968
Sydney Francis Barnes


Sir Neville Cardus

.....Most cricketers and students of the game belonging to the period in which S.F. Barnes played were agreed that he was the bowler of the century. Australians as well as English voted him unanimously the greatest. Clem Hill, the famous Australian left-handed batsman, who in successive Test innings scored 99, 98, 97, v. A.C. MacLaren's England team of 1901-2, told me that on a perfect wicket Barnes could swing the new ball in and out "very late", could spin from the ground, pitch on the leg stump and miss the off. At Melbourne, in December 1911, Barnes in five overs overwhelmed Kelleway, Bardsley, Hill and Armstrong for a single.

Hill was clean bowled by him. "The ball pitched outside my leg-stump, safe to the push off my pads, I thought. Before I could 'pick up' my bat, my off-stump was knocked silly."

Barnes was creative, one of the first bowlers really to use the seam of a new ball and combine swing so subtly with spin that few batsmen could distinguish one from the other.......

.....Mr. Leslie Duckworth, in his admirable book: S. F. Barnes -- Master Bowler, published in July 1967, states that Barnes in all cricket took 6,229 wickets, average 8.33.......

Wisden - Sydney Francis Barnes
 
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Migara

International Coach
told me that on a perfect wicket Barnes could swing the new ball in and out "very late", could spin from the ground, pitch on the leg stump and miss the off.
Sorry, sounds hogwash. That's not possible. Drift, dip and spin is possible, and so is swing and seam off the pitch. any other combination sounds absurd. But "combine swing so subtly with spin" sounds alright.
 
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Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Sorry, sounds hogwash. That's not possible. Drift, dip and spin is possible, and so is swing and seam off the pitch. any other combination sounds absurd. But "combine swing so subtly with spin" sounds alright.
He doesn't mean within the same delivery.
 

watson

Banned
I've read that Barnes could bowl the doosra with a straight arm.

Sounds like hogwash to me. I mean I've never seen it done.
Next we'll be saying that Barnes could win a one-legged butt kicking contest with both arms tied behind his back. So let's not exaggerate Barnes into something he was not, because every bowler has his limitations.

I doubt very much that Barnes bowled the 'doosra' like Murali or Saqlain because he didn't need to. His unique grip on the ball enabled his third finger to flick the ball anti-clockwise thus creating leg-spin, or flick the ball clockwise thus creating off-spin. Barnes did assist the spin by twisting the wrist so he looked like he was unscrewing a light-bulb, but this is very different to a bowler like Murali or Saqlain who flexed their wrists enormously when creating the 'doosra' effect.
 

the big bambino

International Captain
:) My apologies to anyone who took my post seriously. I was just having a little dig at Migara. Obviously it backfired. So joke's on me. That'll learn me to leave comedy to the professionals. :ph34r:
 

Maximas

Cricketer Of The Year
Sounds to me like Barnes was the only bowler of his time to use the magnus effect properly through seam placement. Perhaps every other spinner was bowling with the scrambled seam and couldn't get the drift/dip.
 

watson

Banned
I quite like the following anecdote recorded by Ian Peebles in his book 'Batter's Castles'. It must have occured in 1933 since Barnes was 60 years old at the time of the story.


Walter Robins was playing for Sir Julien Cahn's team, a very strong side against Staffordshire at Stoke, and was amongst those shot out for less than 80 by the youthful sixty-year-old Barnes. The position was indeed parlous when they came in to bat again, well behind, and Sir Julien took desperate counsel of Walter, who recommended one and all having a bash. To this suggestion Sir J. replied that he better lead the way, so that Walter in due course took middle and leg and waited his first experience of Barnes with the new ball. It was quite something in fact, Walter recalls it as one of the most beautiful overs he has ever seen bowled. The first was the out-swinger, which just missed off-stump. The second was the in-dipper, and the defender pulled his umbilicus smartly out of the way as it shot over leg-stump. The next was the leg-break and, just to keep things symmetrical, this missed the off-stump again; a yorker, an off-break and then the last ball of the over, another leg-break. Trying to smother it, the batsman just snicked it and almost before it arrived in the wicketkeeper's gloves all present appealed. To their astonishment ; and that of the striker, the Umpire said "Not Out", and Walter lived to fight another day or at least another over. Be it said for Sir Julien, who liked to win, that on seeing his advisor in such a tangle he laughed until he cried.
What pleases about the anecdote is that RWV Robins played for England as an allrounder from 1929 to 1937 and therefore would have been at the height of his powers when Barnes bowled to him. Robins was no mug with the bat and had a Test match average of 26.6 with 1 Test century and 4 half-centuries. He was also a good leg-spinner.

Consequently, if Barnes at aged 60 could baffle a competent and current Test match batsman like Robins, then he must have been quite a handful in his youth when at full tilt.
 
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watson

Banned
David Frith interviews SF Barnes, aged 94.

Was Barnes the greatest bowler of all time?

David Frith speaks to former England bowler Sydney Barnes whose 49 wickets against South Africa in 1913-14 is still the record for most wickets in a series

David Frith


"What do you want?" A nice greeting, I must say, to a pilgrim who had just driven for three hours all the way up to Cannock, Staffordshire. It was not as if my visit was unscheduled. Sydney Barnes had agreed to it by telephone. He was now 94, and still ferociously sharp mentally. And here I was, looking up into that gaunt face framed in the doorway, and wondering if I was ever going to be invited in.

Maybe he was playing games, teasing, provoking? The history books tell of how difficult he could be to captains, committees and opponents. Now he even refused to sign a book because I had only a ballpoint pen. His copperplate handwriting with a fountain pen - or was it a quill? - was renowned. "I'm not going into the office for you just to get my pen," he croaked. It was a Saturday, so the council office in Stafford where he worked part-time would be locked anyway.

He took some warming up. Then the stories began to flow, though I can't recall a real smile throughout that awesome session in the living room - a faintly evil grimace, yes.

Animatedly he talked me through his first morning spell against Australia at Melbourne in the 1911-12 Ashes series: bowled Bardsley with his first ball, had Kelleway lbw, bowled Hill, then had Armstrong caught by his Warwickshire wicketkeeper Tiger Smith: 4 for 1 in seven legendary overs. Having Minnett later caught by Hobbs gave him 5 for 6, all quality wickets, and England were on their way to sweeping the series after the first Test had been lost. That'd show that vain captain, JWHT Douglas, that Barnes and not he should use the new ball with Frank Foster.

Barnes revealed that the man who brought a bottle of whisky to him in his room the night before, after word had circulated that he was sick, was none other than the Australian veteran, little Syd Gregory, who was not playing. It made all the difference next day. "SF" was fiery as ever, shocking Australia with that 11-over spell, later flopping to the turf when he was barracked for slow field arrangement, resuming only when it stopped.

Did he cut the ball like Underwood? "Cut it!" He glared, and again I wondered if he might hurl something at me. "I spun the ball!" Those long, gnarled fingers gyrated around imaginary leather. He bowled a brisk medium, but applied spin, with excruciating accuracy. No wonder he was regarded as the greatest bowler of all by most thoughtful judges. His bag of 49 wickets in South Africa in 1913-14 is still a series record. And he missed the fifth Test! The official reasons were hazy, but Barnes now explained: they wouldn't pay for his wife's accommodation. That marked the end of his erratic Test career: 189 wickets at 16.43 in 27 Tests. He was 40. Had he played as many Tests as Shane Warne (as yet unborn when we met), Barnes might have finished with around 1000, though covered pitches would have cut him back a little (my view, not his).

Like most old-timers, he had a distant look in his eyes as he recalled long-ago incidents and events: England's one-wicket victory which he pulled off with Arthur Fielder at the MCG in 1908, and his feigned injury when the fee offered for playing in the Lord's centenary match in 1914 was reckoned inadequate. Money drove him beyond most other considerations.

He went from league club to league club because the pay in county cricket fell short. He had as little respect for committees as for opposing batsmen. This theme saturated his reminiscences. Years later the great South African offspinner Hugh Tayfield passed on to me some extreme advice that Barnes had given him: "Don't take any notice of anything anybody ever tells you!"

It was slightly demanding as well as pleasurable to be in Barnes's company. A nonagenarian he might have been, yet his brooding countenance gave a vivid taste of what it must have been like to be an opposing batsman. He wasn't all malevolence: as I was leaving, he relented and signed my book.



This article was first published in the August issue of The Wisden Cricketer.

David Frith, author and historian, was the founder editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly
 
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