You don't rate pre war players, doesn't mean everybody else has to do the same. The very lists you quote to boost Barry have Barnes in the top 15 as a cricketer.
That's very fair.
It's not just the pre war stuff though. Hobbs was pre war. You referenced Barry so I'll use him as an example.
Hobbs gets extra credit for playing in the toughest era for batsmen, as does Root and Smith somewhat do since 2017.
If I'm going that far back it has to the level of outlier against conditions like Hobbs was.
And the reference to Barry was because WSC was a bowler dominated series,.hence the batsmen who succeeded would get more credit that the bowlers, id that makes sense. It's the outliers.
And back again to Barnes, even if his average was more evenly distributed between the two countries, but it was a normal vs Australia and off the charts vs an objectively poor, minnow like SA.
So it's not just the sea era reasoning, but other factors outside of that.
Again using Barry as an example for players with exceptional circumstances, he played 4 tests, but outside of the tests I know the quality of bowlers he succeeded against comparatively we don't even have a single clip of the man bowling or the techniques he faced off against..
