Pap Finn Keighl
International Debutant
SJS on Sydney Barnes.
"If anyone wants to understand Barnes and his performances, you have to look at various aspects of his career. Some are covered here athers not .
1. Barnes did not play much first class cricket because of financial considerations. The money he made and the security that the Minor Counties offered him made him very reluctant to play for Lancashire, not because he wasn't good enough.
2. One can detect the condescending tone when people talk of the 'club' cricket he played in so far as Minor Counties Cricket is concerned. I dont want to comment on the quality of Minor Counties cricket and today's club cricket but clearly they were not as good as the County Championships and yes Barnes hardly played in first class cricket. Here is how many BALLS (yes balls not overs) he delivered in each year till 1901
1894 : ZILCH (1 match)- 1895 : 275 (2 matches)
- 1896 : 115 (1 match)
- 1897 : ZILCH
- 1898 : ZILCH
- 1899 : 375 (1 match)
- 1900 : ZILCH
- 1901 : 216
And yet he was selected for the English side for the 1901-02 tour of Australia. Well he must have been some bowler to play just 'club' cricket and yet be taken to Australia.
3. In Australia in Tests he took
- 5 for 65 on debut in the first test as England won.
- 6 for 42 in the first innings of the second test and
- 7 for 121 in the second innings of the 2nd test as england lost
- He bowled only 7 overs in the 3rd test as he twisted his knee and missed the last two Tests also and England proceeded to lose four Tests in a row.
4. Why was he taken to Australia? Because those 316 balls he bowled in 1901 were in a solitary match he played for Lancashire in 1901. His only match for two years. He took 6 for 70 and his skipper was Archie MacLaren the man who was chosen to lead England that winter.
5. Should he have played earlier? Maybe. But thank God he did play in that one first class game under MacLaren in 1901 or we would not even have heard of him !
6. England played a total of 62 tests from Barnes debut in 1901 to his last game in 1914. Of these he played only 27! What we need to ask ourselves is what his figures would have looked like had he played all those games.
7. Its not as if he was dropped for lack of performance. He NEVER EVER failed in a series (even where he played just a solitary test. Have a look.
Code:
[B]Series Year/Opponents O M R W 5w 10w Best Avg S/R E/R[/B]
1901-1902 AUS v ENG 138.2 33 323 19 3 1 7/121 17 43.68 2.33
1902 (Home) ENG v AUS 32 13 99 7 1 0 6/49 14.14 27.43 3.09
1907-1908 AUS v ENG 273.2 74 626 24 2 0 7/60 26.08 68.33 2.29
1909 (Home) ENG v AUS 155.3 52 340 17 2 0 6/63 20 54.88 2.19
1911-1912 AUS v ENG 297 64 778 34 3 0 5/44 22.88 52.41 2.62
1912 Triangular Series 190 64 404 39 6 3 8/29 10.36 29.23 2.13
1913-1914 SAF v ENG 226 56 536 49 7 3 9/103 10.94 27.67 2.37
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Overall (7 series) 1312.1 356 3106 189 24 7 9/103 16.43 41.66 2.37[/COLOR]8. In the 27 tests that England played him, he took 189 wickets as we know at 16.04 and a strike rate of 41.6.
Here is how other England bowlers fared in those 27 games.
Number of wickets taken
Overall by all England Bowlers : 475
Leading Wicket takers :
Code:
[B]Bowler Wickets[/B]
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Barnes 189[/COLOR]
Foster 45
Rhodes 33
Cr'ford 30
Woolley 29
Fielder 25
Blythe 21
JWHT 20
Braund 18
Code:
[B]Bowler Average[/B]
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Barnes 16.4[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Navy"][B]Rest 28.9[/B][/COLOR]
Woolley 19.9
Foster 20.6
Cr'ford 24.7
Fielder 25.1
Blythe 26.3
JWHT 27.3
Brearley 27.3
Rhodes 32.2
Hearne 48.1
Code:
[B]Bowler Str rate[/B]
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Barnes 41.6[/COLOR]
[B][COLOR="Navy"]REST 60.6[/COLOR][/B]
Woolley 43.6
Crawford 47.5
Fielder 51.9
Blythe 52.9
Foster 54.3
JWHT 59.7
Rhodes 70.6
Hearne 72.0
Brearley 88.4
Hutchings 90.0
Braund 103.7
Hirst 130.5- He had 24 five fors in these 27 games. All others put together had 17.
- Seven times he took ten or more wickets in a test and only once, in these 27 games did any other England bowler, Frank Woolley, take a ten for.
- Yet he missed 35 Tests while playing just 27 !!
These are the stats we need to keep in mind when assessing this remarkable bowler.
By the way, 15 of those 27 tests, England played him in, were between 1909 to 1914 when he was between 36 and 41 years old. England preferred to ignore him when he was at his peak. People talk that he got better as he grew older. Thats only because he took more Test wickets as he got older and thats because he wasn't played earlier.
Between 1903 and 1907 England played 18 Tests in four series and excluded him in every single one of them.
I would like to believe that Hadlee might have been chasing Barnes' record rather than Botham's if England selectors had done a better job.
Finally, just to show what this 'club' bowler could do, he actually played against three international sides well into his fifties. Here is what happened.
- In September 1927, Barnes, now 54, played against the touring New Zealanders in a first class game. In 35 overs he took 4 for 47 including the legendary Charlie Dempster.
- Then, next year, against the visiting West Indians, our man Barnes, bowled 27 overs (almost non-stop it seems since the innings lasted exactly 60 overs) and took 7 West Indian wickets for 51 runs. He was past 55 years.
He took another five wickets in the second innings and Wales actually won the match. Barnes got Challenor in both innings. - In 1929, it was the turn of the South Africans. In under 14 overs, 5 of which were maidens, Barnes took 6 South African wickets for a mere 28 runs. These included South African greats Bruce Mitchell and Herbie Taylor. Mitchell was Bradman's contemporary and played his last Test in 1949. So much for the argument based on the bad wickets of the early 20th century. He took another 4 in the second knock as Wales came close to defeating the visitors losing by just 10 runs!!
Five 5 - fors in 3 matches against touring sides spread over three years including two ten wicket or more per match hauls and this man was into his mid-fifties!!! You may give any argument you want but this is the performance of a master craftsman whose skills were so great that no amount of ravages wrought by time could dim their brilliance.
It is so sad, that Barnes did not get to play a match against Bradman's Australians in 1930. That would have been magnificient. A young all time great against a champion bowler in the 58th year of his amazing career.
I think while if he had played all those Tests in the first decade of the 20th century he could have been close to 400 wicket mark, imagine if he had continued after the first world war !!
PHEW!!!"
