Sydney Barnes took 49 wickets in four Tests on the 1913-14 tour of South Africa — the most by any bowler in any series in Test history. He missed the fifth Test in a pay dispute. The figure has stood for more than a century and remains the great unbroken individual bowling record of Test cricket.
Barnes was 40 years old, had not played a Test since 1912, and had spent the intervening years bowling in the Lancashire and Staffordshire leagues, where he was paid more than the Test fees would have given him.
England's South African tour was led by Douglas, with a side that included Hobbs, Rhodes and Woolley. Barnes had insisted on a private deal with the South African board to play. He arrived in good form.
England's tour of South Africa in 1913-14, captained by Johnny Douglas, was Barnes' personal masterpiece. Bowling on matting wickets stretched over hard South African soil, his fast-medium leg-cutters and off-cutters were almost unplayable for the home batsmen. In the second Test at Johannesburg he took 17 for 159 — the best match figures in Test cricket at the time, only surpassed by Jim Laker in 1956. Across the four Tests he played, his analysis was 49 wickets at 10.93 apiece. He then refused to play the fifth Test. Accounts of the dispute vary — some say it was over the bonus owed to him by the South African board, others over expenses for his wife — but Barnes was 40, professional, and never one to be exploited. Without him England drew the fifth Test. The 49-wicket series record has never been threatened.
First Test, Durban: Barnes 5/57 and 5/48
Second Test, Johannesburg: 8/56 and 9/103, match figures 17/159
Third Test, Johannesburg: 8/85 and 3/26
Fourth Test, Durban: 7/56 and 7/88
Fifth Test: Barnes refuses to play in pay dispute
Dec 1913
First Test, Durban: Barnes 10/105 in match
Dec 1913
Second Test, Johannesburg: 17/159, then-Test record
Jan 1914
Third Test, Johannesburg: 11/111
Feb 1914
Fourth Test, Durban: 14/144; Barnes withdraws from fifth Test
“There never was a bowler like him. He could swing the ball, cut it both ways at fast-medium, and pitch on a sixpence.”
England won the series 4-0. Barnes never played another Test. World War I broke out within months and Test cricket would not resume until 1920, by which time he was 47. He continued in the leagues into his sixties.
The single greatest bowling series in the history of Test cricket — and the bowler walked away from a fifth Test over money.
The 49-wicket series record remains the most secure of all Test bowling records. Muralitharan, Warne, Hadlee and McGrath in much longer modern series have not approached it. The 17/159 at Johannesburg stood as the best match figures in Tests for 42 years.
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.