Sydney Barnes

Sydney Barnes

Personal information
Full name	Sydney Francis Barnes
Born	19 April 1873(1873-04-19) Smethwick, Staffordshire, England
Died	26 December 1967 (aged 94) Chadsmoor, Staffordshire, England
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Right arm fast-medium
International information
National side	England
Test debut (cap 129)	13 December 1901 v Australia
Last Test	18 February 1914 v South Africa
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1927–1930	Wales
1929	Minor Counties
1899–1903	Lancashire
1894–1896	Warwickshire
Career statistics
Competition	Tests	First-class
Matches	27	133
Runs scored	242	1,573
Batting average	8.06	12.78
100s/50s	0/0	0/2
Top score	38*	93
Balls bowled	7,873	31,430
Wickets	189	719
Bowling average	16.43	17.09
5 wickets in innings	24	68
10 wickets in match	7	18
Best bowling	9/103	9/103
Catches/stumpings	12/–	72/–
Source: [2], 7 January 2009

Sydney Francis Barnes (19 April 1873 – 26 December 1967), usually known simply as S. F. Barnes, was, by the assertion of most of the players and critics of his era, both English and Australian, one of the finest bowlers in cricket history. In 27 Test matches, all of them against Australia and South Africa (the only other two countries with Test status), he took 189 wickets at an average of 16.43 runs each and is ranked first in the LG ICC Best Ever Test Bowling rating.^[1]

On 30 July 2009, Sydney Barnes was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.^[2]

Early life

Sydney Francis Barnes was born on 19 April 1873 in Smethwick, Staffordshire. He was the second son of five children whose father, Richard, spent nearly all of his life in Staffordshire, spending 63 years of it with the same company in Birmingham. He did not play much cricket, which gives substance to his son's claim that he never received more than three hours of coaching.

County and club cricket career

Barnes briefly played county cricket for Warwickshire and, in 1902 and 1903, Lancashire, although he met with only moderate success. There were, however, several successful performances, but after a contractual dispute near the end of 1903, he took no further part in County cricket, playing instead for Staffordshire in the Minor County Championship, for a number of clubs in the Lancashire League and for Saltaire in the Bradford Cricket League. His record for Staffordshire was 1,441 wickets at a cost of 8.15 runs per wicket, while his average in the Lancashire League was even lower.

He played as the professional for Saltaire from 1915 until 1923, taking 803 wickets at an average of just over 5. He took a hundred wickets in a season three times, a feat that has only been achieved on two other occasions in the Bradford League's history. He returned to the league for Keighley in 1934 when he was 61.^[3] He preferred the safe and decent wage-paying minor leagues to the lesser paid, unsure County Championship.^{[citation needed]}

After taking eight wickets for the Players in the 1914 Gentlemen v Players, Barnes had to wait thirteen more years before he played first-class cricket again: this eventually happened in the first of nine appearances for Wales between 1927 and 1930. He took 49 first-class wickets for Wales, including seven for 51 and five for 67 in an eight-wicket triumph over the West Indians in 1928, when he was 55 years of age. Barnes also made two first-class appearances for the Minor Counties in 1929, recording the innings analysis of 32-11-41-8 in a drawn game against the South Africans at Stoke-on-Trent.

Barnes's final first-class game was against MCC at Lord's in 1930, when he was 57 years old; he took two for 57. He played minor county and league cricket well into his sixties and died at the age of 94 on Boxing Day, 1967 in Chadsmoor, Staffordshire.

England career

Barnes is the only cricketer to be selected to play for England while playing league (rather than county) cricket. Barnes' style of bowling is virtually unknown today: he bowled mainly medium pace leg-cutters but varied his delivery speed considerably and was sometimes quicker. He used his strong hands and wrists to deliver both leg- and off-cutters, although he did not achieve the same success over the latter. Barnes got a great deal of movement both through the air and off the pitch at any pace. Of the aerial movement, some contemporary accounts describe him as having swung the ball, but the movement in question was probably more a result of side-spin and would today be termed "drift" instead.

In 1910, Barnes was made a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. The following year, he went on a tour of Australia with Johnny Douglas's M.C.C. team. In the second Test at Melbourne, he bowled what some believe to be the greatest-ever spell in a Test Match, despite suffering a fever that kept him off the field during the twenty minutes before lunch. In the first Test at Sydney (which England lost), captain Johnny Douglas shared the new ball with left-arm seamer Frank Foster. Barnes, disgusted at being made a change bowler, sulked and gave a performance that was well below par. In the next Test, however, Douglas bowed to the pressure and surrendered the new ball to the Staffordshire bowler, who responded with a spell of five wickets for six runs, demolishing the Australian top order in 10.1 overs. "I told you so," he said to Douglas after one of his breakthroughs. His five scalps were Warren Bardsley, Charles Kelleway, Clem Hill, Warwick Armstrong and Roy Minnett, leaving the home side floundering on 38 for six.

Barnes's 49 wickets against South Africa in the 1913-14 away series is still the record for any bowler in a Test series, although he played in only four of the five Tests. In the Test at Johannesburg, the second of the series, Barnes became the first man to take more than 15 wickets in a Test, claiming eight for 56 and nine for 103, resulting in match figures of seventeen for 159 ^[4]. Only Jim Laker's nineteen for ninety in 1956 has since surpassed this feat.

Bowling style

Harry Altham wrote of his bowling: "At appreciably more than medium pace he could, even in the finest weather and on the truest wickets in Australia, both swing and break the ball from off or leg. Most deadly of all was the ball which he would deliver from rather wide on the crease, move in with a late swerve the width of the wicket, and then straighten back off the ground to hit the off stump."^[5]

Bernard Hollowood quoted his father, Albert Hollowood, who had been Barnes' Staffordshire captain before World War I, as saying: "Oh, yes, he could bowl 'em all, but he got his wickets with fast leg-breaks. Marvellous, absolutely marvellous, he was. Fast leg-breaks and always on a length."^[6]

Career statistics

Barnes took 189 Test wickets, his average of 16.43 and strike rate of 41.65 are the second lowest (after the 10.75 and 34.11 of George Lohmann) for any bowler who has taken 75 Test wickets or more. Barnes also appeared for Wales in 1929. By this time well into his fifties, he took 49 first-class wickets for Wales, including 7-51 in that 1928 win over the Caribbean tourists.

Accolades

As S.C. Griffith, the former M.C.C. secretary, wrote in a tribute to Barnes in the Wisden for 1968, "The extraordinary thing about him was that all his contemporaries considered him the greatest bowler. There was never any doubts in their minds. This must have been unique." Richie Benaud selected him in his all time cricket XI.^[7]

Honoured by Wisden

In the 1963 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, Barnes was selected by Neville Cardus as one the Six Giants of the Wisden Century.^[8] This was a special commemorative selection requested by Wisden for its 100th edition. The other five players chosen were:

• Don Bradman
• W G Grace
• Jack Hobbs
• Tom Richardson
• Victor Trumper

Notes

External links

• Cricinfo page on Sydney Barnes
• Wisden Cricketer tribute to Sydney Barnes