Sydney Barnes, then a Lancashire League professional with seven first-class matches to his name, made his Test debut at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 13 December 1901, taking 5 for 65. He went on to take 19 wickets in his first two Tests before injury ended his tour. Barnes' career was unique: 27 Tests, 189 wickets at 16.43, but only 47 first-class County Championship matches, his preference being the better-paid Minor Counties and Lancashire League.
Barnes was born in Smethwick in 1873 to a working-class family. He played for Warwickshire briefly in 1894 and Lancashire briefly in 1899, but found regular first-class cricket physically and financially unrewarding. His preference for league cricket — three days a week of one match, often double the county wage — was rational economics for a working professional with no private means.
MacLaren's 1901-02 tour was raised privately, after MCC and the Australian board could not agree on terms. The team was strong but unbalanced, and the bowling was thin until MacLaren's selection of Barnes proved inspired.
Barnes' Lancashire match in August 1901 produced figures of 6 for 70 in 24.5 overs against Leicestershire. MacLaren, watching, had heard of his league reputation. The decision to take him to Australia was reported in the press as eccentric.
Archie MacLaren, Lancashire's captain and England's tour captain to Australia in 1901-02, picked Sydney Barnes on the basis of a single county match (in which Barnes took 6 for 70). It was a startling selection: Barnes was 28, had played seven first-class matches, and was earning his living in the Burnley CC dressing-room.
In the first Test at Sydney on 13 December 1901, Barnes opened the bowling with Len Braund and produced figures of 5 for 65. He bowled at near-medium pace with leg-cutters and off-cutters that swung and seamed; the Australians of Hill, Trumper, Darling and Noble had not seen anything quite like it. In the second Test at Melbourne he took 6 for 42 and 7 for 121 — 13 wickets in the match, an England Ashes record then. He was injured (a knee strain) in the third Test and could not continue the tour.
From 1902 Barnes did what no other great Test bowler did: he turned down county cricket. Lancashire wanted him; he refused, considering the pay too low for the labour. He played for Staffordshire in the Minor Counties Championship from 1904 and in the leagues for Burnley, Church, and Porthill. He was repeatedly recalled to England — and produced extraordinary figures: 49 wickets in the 1911-12 Ashes, 7 for 6 against South Africa at Johannesburg in 1913-14, and a final career return of 189 Test wickets at 16.43, one of the lowest averages of any Test bowler with more than 100 wickets.
Dec 1901: Test debut at Sydney; 5 for 65.
Jan 1902: 13 wickets in match at Melbourne (6/42 and 7/121).
Knee injury in 3rd Test ends his tour.
1902 onwards: declines Lancashire's offer; chooses Minor Counties and league cricket.
1907-08: returns to Test cricket (24 wickets).
1911-12: 49 wickets in Ashes — England win 4-1.
1913-14: 49 wickets v South Africa in 4 Tests, including 7/6 at Johannesburg.
19 April 1873
Barnes born in Smethwick.
Aug 1901
6/70 for Lancashire v Leicestershire — MacLaren picks him for Australia.
13 Dec 1901
Test debut, Sydney; 5/65.
Jan 1902
13/163 at Melbourne.
1902-1914
Refuses county cricket; plays Minor Counties and leagues.
1911-12
49 Ashes wickets in Australia.
1913-14
49 wickets v South Africa, including 7/6 at Johannesburg.
26 Dec 1967
Dies aged 94.
“He was a great bowler — there could have been few who were better.”
“Sydney was the best — and he knew it.”
Barnes played his last Test in 1914, against South Africa. The First World War interrupted any further opportunity, and by the time peace returned he was over 45. He continued in league cricket into his 60s, taking wickets in Staffordshire matches into the 1930s. He died in 1967 aged 94.
Barnes is in cricket's first round of inductees in the ICC Hall of Fame and is widely considered the greatest bowler in Test history. His freelance model has not been imitated, but the principle (player power and pay equity) was revisited in his lifetime by the Packer revolution of the 1970s.
A career of singular financial discipline and bowling brilliance. Barnes' refusal to enslave himself to county cricket, in an era when first-class professionals lived hand-to-mouth, was viewed by some as eccentric and by others as canny. The Test record is the answer: 189 wickets at 16.43 in 27 matches.
Barnes' Test average of 16.43 (with 189 wickets) is unsurpassed by any bowler with more than 150 Test wickets. His seven five-wicket hauls in the 1913-14 South Africa series remains a record for a single series.
Don Bradman, no easy compliment-giver, said of Barnes: 'He was a great bowler — there could have been few who were better.' English captain JWHT Douglas said simply: 'Sydney was the best — and he knew it.'
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.