On the opening morning of the second Test at Melbourne, Sydney Barnes reduced Australia to 38 for four with an opening burst that took out Bardsley, Kelleway, Hill and Armstrong for a single run. Australia still won the match, but the spell entered cricket folklore.
Barnes was 38, professional, prickly about money, and convinced he was the best bowler alive. Being asked to take the second new ball at Sydney had wounded him deeply.
Australia won the toss and batted. Bardsley and Kelleway, normally a careful pair, walked out to face Barnes and Foster on a hot Melbourne morning.
Smarting from being denied the new ball at Sydney, Barnes was finally allowed first use at Melbourne and answered with one of the great pieces of fast-medium bowling. Warren Bardsley went first, then Charlie Kelleway, then Clem Hill — bowled by a ball Hill said pitched outside leg and hit the off stump before he could lift his bat — then Warwick Armstrong. Five overs, four wickets, one run conceded. Australia recovered through a defiant 56 from Roy Minnett and an even more defiant 27 from the tail, and Monty Noble's first innings figures of seven for 17 actually outshone Barnes statistically. Australia won the match by 229 runs. But Barnes' spell was the moment around which the rest of the series turned: from then on Douglas opened with him, and the new-ball pair of Barnes and Foster never lost a Test.
Bardsley caught for a duck off Barnes
Kelleway bowled by Barnes
Hill bowled around his legs by a ball he never picked
Armstrong dismissed; 38 for 4, Barnes 4-1
Morning
Australia win toss, elect to bat
Pre-lunch
Barnes 4-1 in his opening five overs
End of innings
Barnes 5/44; Australia 184 all out
Match end
Australia win by 229 runs despite Barnes' 9/103
“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.”
A bowling spell so good that Australia won the match and history still remembers Barnes.
Barnes' Melbourne morning is remembered as one of the most sustained spells of high-class fast-medium bowling in Test history. Hill's description — 'Before I could pick up my bat, my off stump was knocked silly' — has been quoted in every Barnes biography since.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.