Sidney George Barnes (5 June 1916 – 16 December 1973) was an Australian cricketer and cricket writer, who played 13 Test matches between 1938 and 1948. Able to open the innings or bat down the order, Barnes was regarded as one of Australia's finest batsmen in the period immediately following World War II. He helped create an enduring record when scoring 234 in the second Test against England at Sydney in December 1946; exactly the same score as his captain, Don Bradman, in the process setting a world-record 405-run fifth wicket partnership. Barnes averaged 63.05 over 19 innings in a career that, like those of most of his contemporaries, was interrupted by World War II.
He made his first-class debut at the end of the 1936–37 season when selected for New South Wales, and he was later included in the team for the 1938 Australian tour of England, making his Test debut in the final international of the series. On the resumption of Test cricket after the war, he was picked as the opening partner to Arthur Morris. Barnes was a member of The Invincibles, the 1948 Australian team that toured England without losing a single match. Retiring from cricket at the end of that tour, Barnes attempted a comeback to Test cricket in the 1951–52 season that was ultimately and controversially unsuccessful.
Barnes had a reputation as an eccentric and was frequently the subject of controversy. This included a celebrated libel case, following his exclusion from the national team in 1951–52 for "reasons other than cricket ability". He was later involved in an incident where, acting as twelfth man, he performed his duties on the ground in a suit and tie (rather than 'whites'), carrying a bizarre range of superfluous items. Despite this reputation, Barnes was a shrewd businessman who used the opportunities afforded by cricket to supplement his income through trading, journalism and property development. Increasing paranoia brought about by bipolar disorder saw Barnes lose many of the friends he had made through the game as he sought treatment for his depression. On 16 December 1973, he was found dead at his home in the Sydney suburb of Collaroy; he had ingested barbiturates and bromide in a probable suicide.
Early years
thumb|left|Barnes, aged 16, as a Petersham player
Barnes was born in 1916 in Annandale, an inner suburb of Sydney. However, in his autobiography, he claims to have been born in 1918 or 1919 in Queensland, and his military service record has his date of birth as 5 June 1917. He was the third child of Alfred Percival Barnes and Hilda May Barnes (née Jeffery), both from farming families near Tamworth in northern New South Wales. After marrying, the couple left Tamworth to take up a lease on a remote sheep station near Hughenden in North Queensland. Before Sid was born, Alfred died from typhoid fever, caused by drinking contaminated water on the family property. After his death, Hilda, widowed and pregnant with her latest child, moved to Sydney with her children and stayed with her sister, where Sid was born. From her husband's estate, Hilda Barnes mother was able to purchase and renovate real estate in Stanmore and Leichhardt, New South Wales, to let or sell. Later in life, Barnes would recount how, as a child, he used to collect the rents for his mother.
Childhood and club cricket
Barnes attended Stanmore Public School and, although not a scholar, was a keen participant in sporting activities. His introduction to cricket came via his older brother, Horrie; Horrie was a useful batsman who played in the local Western Suburbs Churches league and paid Sid sixpence to bowl to him after he finished work. Taking an interest in the game, Sid had trials for the school team and was eventually selected in the first XI. An early controversy saw Barnes suspended for three weeks for disputing an umpire's decision. Successes for both his school team and his local club team, St. Augustine, saw him acquire the nickname The Governor-General—the nickname of Australian Test player, Charlie Macartney, and he was selected for New South Wales Schoolboys to play teams from Victoria and Queensland. He was soon successful, scoring a century against Manly in February. Even as a young and inexperienced cricketer, he showed a "brash confidence in his own ability."
When praised for his batting by the great Test bowler Bill O'Reilly, Barnes responded "Thanks very much, you didn't bowl too badly yourself", leaving O'Reilly speechless.
This success led Barnes to consider cricket as a potential career. However, his mother and stepfather were concerned about the likelihood of cricket providing him with a living. In response, Barnes took a job with a garage in Mosman but after finding that the necessary travel interfered too much with playing cricket, he found alternative employment, demonstrating motorbikes in the city.
thumb|Barnes in NSW cap, 1937.
First-class cricket
Barnes had come to the attention of the New South Wales selectors by the 1936–37 season and was included as twelfth man in the side to play the visiting English side, taking a catch on the boundary to dismiss Stan Worthington. He made his first-class debut in the final Sheffield Shield match of the season, against South Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Batting at number five, Barnes scored 31 and 44, twice being dismissed LBW by the leg spinner Frank Ward. Whilst fielding, Barnes managed to find himself in controversy again, running out Vic Richardson, the opposition captain, after the end of the over was called. The square leg umpire had not heard the call of "Over" and upheld the appeal, much to the disgust of Richardson. The New South Wales captain Stan McCabe, whom Barnes idolized, withdrew the appeal. He appeared to have reached the landmark when scoring 127 not out against Western Australia, but the New South Wales Cricket Association retrospectively deemed the match to be not of first-class status, angering Barnes. As a result of his performances over the season (scoring over 800 runs, averaging 50.56), Barnes was selected as the youngest member of the Australian cricket team to tour England in 1938.
Test cricket
Pre-war debut
Unfortunately for Barnes, he broke his wrist while exercising on the sea voyage to England for the 1938 tour, keeping the injury secret until the tourists had departed Gibraltar, for fear of being sent home. On arrival in England, he therefore did not play an innings until the last day of June, missing exactly half of the 30 first-class matches scheduled for the tour, including the first two Tests, both of which were drawn. His first innings was 42 against Derbyshire and he shared in a fourth wicket stand of 176 with Bill Brown, who made an unbeaten 265. The third Test was a wash-out and he was not picked for the fourth, which the Australians won, although in his autobiography he claimed that he was considered as a candidate to be wicketkeeper, having deputised for Ben Barnett in that role in tour matches against Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire. In the event, his Test debut came in the final Test, played at The Oval. Barnes bowled 38 overs in the innings and took the seventh wicket, that of Arthur Wood, for 84 runs. With both Don Bradman and Jack Fingleton injured and unable to bat, Australia struggled – England won by an innings and 579 runs – still the largest winning margin in Test cricket history; but Barnes played innings of 41 and 33 and, according to Wisden, "well justified his choice". In all first-class matches on the tour, Barnes scored 720 runs, and reached 90 three times, though without going on to a first-class century. He scored 140 in a two-day match against Durham, which was not considered first-class.
thumb|left|Cigarette card showing Barnes as a New South Wales representative
His international career was then put on hold, as all foreign tours were suspended during World War II. He continued to play first-class cricket in Australia, before enlisting in the Second Australian Imperial Force in May 1942. Barnes's time in the military was short. A man who was proud of his appearance, he had a uniform made to measure when the one issued did not fit. He met champion golfer Norman Von Nida early into his enlistment and the two were assigned to the 1st Armoured Division in Greta. A shortage of tanks and the military regimen led to boredom and Barnes used his hitherto ignored trade background to his advantage, seeking a release to join a tank-making company, which was granted. Von Nida and Barnes remained friends and business partners for many years afterwards.
Post-war series
After scoring 1,050 runs (including six centuries) at an average of 75.00 in the 1940–41 season, He was picked for the 1945–46 Australian tour of New Zealand and played in the representative match that was later designated as the first Test match between the two countries: he made 54 as Australia won easily. The post-war period also saw a new approach to batting on the part of Barnes. He discarded his aggressive and flamboyant shot-making and re-invented himself as a watchful, more defensive player, which made his scoring more prolific, although less crowd pleasing. He also liked the idea of batting ahead of Bradman in the batting order: "Much better, I thought, to get in before him than to come later, like flat beer after champagne."
Barnes was first-choice as an opener with Arthur Morris throughout the Test series, although it was not until the Third Test that they had a first-wicket partnership of any substance. Morris had broken into the team as an opener after an injury sidelined Bill Brown for the entire season.
The First Test at Brisbane was dominated by Australia, a pattern that was to be a feature of the series, although Barnes contributed only 31 to the total of 645 which brought an innings victory. Barnes displayed his liking for slightly aggressive practical jokes in this match: during a break for a particularly ferocious thunderstorm, he <blockquote>got a huge block of ice out of the tub in which our drinks were kept, staggered to the side of the dressing-room and tossed it on to the roof over the English dressing-room. It caused a noise for a start that brought all the Englishmen running and then it came over the side of the gutter, crashed on to the lawn and slithered down the grass. Those English eyes certainly did stand out.</blockquote>
Bradman had words with Barnes after this match about his new role as an opener. Barnes later wrote: <blockquote>He asked me how I liked it. I said it suited me. 'You batted very well in this game,' he said, 'but not quite as an opener. You were looking for runs all the time. I think what you want to watch as an opener is not getting out ... What is needed from my openers, and is most important, is patience and plenty of it.' I was completely willing to be guided by anything that Bradman wanted me to do.</blockquote>
Years later, Barnes wrote about the effect this had on his batting style. <blockquote>There was one angle about this change of batting position that didn't appeal to me. I am, by nature, a forcing batsman. I like to take the shine out of a bowler [sic] and I love to hear the ball rattling the pickets, or soaring over the fence ... My footwork was quick and I often caused delight by stepping back feet outside the leg stump and square-cutting ... If I were to become an Australian Test opening batsman I would have to conform to standard. I would have to put up the shutters ... And so I came to the Second Test in Sydney ready to drape myself in the gloomy colors of a Test opening batsman.</blockquote>
thumb|Bradman and Barnes leave the field for an adjournment as both head towards 234.
It was during the Second Test at Sydney in December 1946, that Barnes made a lasting impression on the world game. Having opened the innings, he made his top Test score of 234 and helped to set a world-record 405 run fifth-wicket partnership with Don Bradman, a record that still stands today.
On a rain-affected pitch Arthur Morris was out at 1/24 and Ian Johnson came out as a nightwatchman He and Barnes angered the crowd by launching into a series of bad light appeals – up to 12 were counted – before the umpires gave way and play was ended with an hour to spare. This ensured that Australia would not have to play on a sticky wicket and allowed Bradman to rest his leg until play resumed on the Monday. After the series Barnes said on radio:
<blockquote>
We could have played on, but it was a Test match and we just had to win. I realised something drastic had to be done or three wickets might be lost. So I appealed after every second ball. I complained of the people moving about, the light, and, in fact, anything, in an effort to get the appeal upheld. Hammond and Yardley were inspecting the wet pitch. I knew there was a chance of losing valuable wickets so I just kept on appealing until the umpires answered me.
</blockquote>
Barnes played carefully on the still-suspect pitch the following day, and, late in the afternoon, Bradman, lower in the order than usual due to a leg injury, joined Barnes with the score at 4/159. Over six and a half hours later, Bradman was out for 234. Barnes was dismissed just four balls later, also for 234, having batted for over ten hours. In his autobiography, Barnes stated that the coincidence of scores was intended. "Lots of people have asked me whether I deliberately threw my wicket away at 234. The answer is yes." He confirmed to an interviewer many years later that "it wouldn't be right for someone to make more runs than Sir Donald Bradman".
E.W. Swanton wrote that this "could well have been so for he was a man of quixotic mood and temperament". However the England bowler, Alec Bedser wrote "It was when I was bowling to Sid at Sydney that I first discovered that I could move the ball to leg by use of my wrist and fingers...I held the ball in the same manner as a leg-break bowler with the fingers across the seam...and on pitching I was surprised to see the ball go away like a leg-break. It also surprised Sid Barnes". This would make Barnes the first batsman to be dismissed by Bedser's "Special Ball" which would claim Bradman for a duck in the Fourth Test at Adelaide.
Barnes injured his hand during fielding practice before the Third Test, and although he went on to play in that game (scoring 45 and 32), he opted out of batting in a state game – according to his autobiography, this cost him the New South Wales captaincy – and he missed the fourth Test. He returned for the final Test and top-scored with 71 in Australia's first innings, adding 30 in the second. Once in England, he was approached by Burnley to play as a professional in Lancashire League cricket, which he did for a while before finding it "too much of a drag" and resigning.
Barnes returned to Australia for the 1947–48 season, keen to win a place on the 1948 tour to England. He was worried that having played as a professional in the Lancashire League would damage his chance of further Test cricket, but at the same time suggested that he had offers from other Lancashire League teams to fall back on should he not be picked. There was also concern that, with his wife now living in Scotland, he would breach the Australian rule that wives were not allowed to travel with Test cricketers. In fact, lack of form and opportunity were greater threats to Barnes's continued Test career. Arriving back with several state games having already been played, he failed to make runs for New South Wales and was not picked for the first two Tests against the Indian tourists, Bill Brown taking over as opener with Morris.
The match between Victoria and New South Wales was Barnes's chance to redeem himself. Wisden reported it thus: <blockquote>
Barnes needed a score to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the Test Selectors and he spent all Saturday over 131 runs while 20,000 impatient spectators barracked loudly. His dismissal on the third day evoked cheers all round the ground.</blockquote>
He followed that century (158 in total) with a similarly plodding 80 not out in the second innings, and was picked for the third Test, with Brown dropped after a series of low scores in the first two Tests. Barnes made only 12 and 15, jeopardising his place, but what Wisden termed "another of his dour, determined but faultless innings for top score" in the New South Wales game against South Australia ensured a second chance. In the fourth Test at Adelaide he made 112 and put on 236 with Bradman for the second wicket. With 33 in the final match of the series, his place on the 1948 tour was secure, though he had to give assurances about the amount of contact he would have with his wife, still living in Scotland, before he was confirmed.
The Invincibles tour
thumb|Barnes on the cover of Sporting Life, 1948.
The 1948 Australia team that toured England has become known as The Invincibles, because they did not lose a single game. Following their performances during the Australian season, Barnes and Morris were favoured as Australia's first-choice opening pair, while Brown batted out of position in the middle order in the first two Tests.
Before the second Test at Lord's, Barnes wagered £8 at 15/1 on himself to score a century.
Barnes and Morris shared century opening partnerships at Lord's and The Oval, where their 117 run stand dwarfed the 52 all out made by the entire England team. In addition to his century at Lord's, Barnes made three other scores over 60 in the series.</blockquote>
However, he received criticism for this approach and it resulted in him missing the fourth Test at Headingley through injury. During the first-class tour matches, Barnes's performance was less spectacular. In all first-class matches on the tour, he amassed 1354 runs, averaging 56.41.
Later playing career
thumb|Barnes plays a practical joke by using a miniature bat in [[Donald Bradman|Bradman's testimonial match.]]
An important concern for Barnes, when returning from the United Kingdom to Australia, was to avoid paying customs duties on the enormous amount of goods he acquired through various deals during the tour. This included good quality English cloth, in very short supply in Australia at this time. Hearing a rumour that Customs officials were waiting in Sydney for him, Barnes disembarked at Melbourne and travelled to Sydney by train. The move worked and he sold his stock at a substantial profit, conservatively estimated to be equal to his tour fee.
Barnes played in Bradman's testimonial match at the MCG in December 1948, but otherwise made himself unavailable for first-class cricket, preferring to pursue business interests. He wrote a regular column for Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, prosaically titled "Like It or Lump It", in which he often criticised the administration of the game and the amounts paid to Australia's leading cricketers. Barnes was one of a number of cricket writers of the immediate post-war era who adopted a confrontational tabloid style of journalism, in contrast to the more sedate reporting of the 1930s.
Libel case
thumb|left|Barnes and his legal representative outside the venue of their libel case
At the beginning of the 1951–52 season, Barnes had a change of heart and returned to the New South Wales team in a bid to play Test cricket again. He approached Aubrey Oxlade, the chairman of Australian cricket's Board of Control, to ask if there was any impediment to his return to the Australian team. Oxlade told Barnes that he would be judged solely on his batting performances.
The Board of Control had granted themselves the power to exclude a player from the national team "on grounds other than cricket ability" following the poor behaviour of some members of the 1912 team that toured England. They had a secret dossier, compiled during the season, documenting Barnes's behaviour and they doctored the minutes of the meeting at which they discussed his selection. off the field, he sought answers from the administrators, but was frustrated by their evasiveness. His form tapered off during the closing stages of the season and he finished with 433 first-class runs at an average of 39.36. Responding to a letter in support of Barnes, Raith sided with the Board and suggested that his character was to blame for the omission.
The case began in Sydney's District Court on 21 August 1952. Shand's examination of the various Board members appearing for the defendant revealed the Board's maladministration, pettiness and its acceptance of rumour as fact. No firm reason was put forward for the omission of Barnes and a division within the Board was evident when several of its members spoke highly of him. His first movement was back and across the crease to cover the stumps from the view of the bowler, putting him in position to play the hook, leg glance, sweep and his favourite square cut shot.
Journalist Ray Robinson called Barnes the Artful Dodger of cricket, alluding to both his batting style and his off-field business dealings, and wrote that he "would rather steal a run like a pickpocket than hit an honest four with a straightforward stroke." Robinson summarised his safety-first approach in going so far back as the bowler delivered:
<blockquote>Though this routine made his play air-tight in one way, it simplified opposing captains' field-placing to curb his scoring, it left him with a back-foot addict's liability to go leg-before-wicket or be caught behind on either side, and it allowed his attackers to bowl their most awkward length ... he could have made more runs since the war as a stroke-player, and won popular backing as a candidate for the title of world's best batsman, instead of the austere distinction of looking the hardest Australian to get out.
</blockquote>
David Frith wrote of Bill Brown's memories of Barnes as a person, and his controversial fielding:
<blockquote>
'Bagga' Barnes was also Bill's room-mate, and his affection for his late lamented pal, a lovable rogue, was obvious. He recalled the furore over Barnes's provocative field positioning, extremely close at silly mid-on, and how criticism of his foot being too close to the mown pitch prompted him to plonk his boot a couple of feet into the forbidden territory – and a couple of feet more when the English crowd roared at him. Barnes's leg break spun very little, but he had a topspinner which hurried onto the batsman and yielded him many wickets.
Outside of cricket, Barnes followed his mother into property development (see above) and at various times entered into partnerships with Keith Miller and Norman Von Nida. His suspicious nature, which grew as time passed, saw these partnerships and developments end in arguments and recriminations. While Barnes was not a millionaire, he was a successful and organised businessman.
As a writer, Barnes had no claims to literary talent; his copy was ghost-written, in all likelihood by his friend Jack Tier and later by former professional rugby league footballer Peter Peters. His writing was of a provocative tone; his column in the Daily Express during the 1953 tour was called "The Aussie They Couldn't Gag". His forthright opinions certainly cost him friends and hardened the opinions of others about him. At the end of the 1953 tour, he published Eyes on the Ashes, and his autobiography, It Isn't Cricket. He also wrote The Ashes Ablaze in 1955, and turned to full-time writing, mostly for Sydney's The Daily Telegraph. His columns were perceived as being deliberately controversial, and, as time went by, increasingly regarded as carping. In 1973, Barnes died at his home in Collaroy, one of Sydney's northern beach suburbs, from barbiturate and bromide poisoning. Although the medications were certainly self-administered, the coroner could not "determine intent".
Barnes's short career was dominated by his monumental double hundred, but he was a consistent performer, as the chart (left) reveals. Age did not seem to diminish his abilities; in his last eight Test innings, aged 31–32, he passed 50 five times and scored two of his three Test hundreds. thumb|left|300px|Sid Barnes's Test batting performances. The red bars indicate the runs that he scored in an innings, with the blue line indicating the [[batting average (cricket)|batting average in his last ten innings. The blue dots indicate an innings where he remained not out. fully a third better (statistically) than the next best man in history (see completed career averages chart, right). Barnes and Bradman
played together in three series. In those series, Barnes's averages bear comparison to Bradman's, particularly in the more combative Ashes series: Because Barnes played only 19 Test innings, his performances are weighted to just under 85% of their full value.
Test match performance
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" width="80%"
|-
!colspan=2|
!colspan=4| Batting
!colspan=4| Bowling
|-
! style="text-align:left;" | Opposition
!| Matches
!| Runs
!| Average
!| High Score
!| 100 / 50
!| Runs
!| Wickets
!| Average
!| Best (Inns)
|- style="text-align:right;"
| style="text-align:left;" | England
|| 9
|| 846
|| 70.50
|| 234
|| 2/4
|| 118
|| 1
|| 118.00
|| 1/84
|- style="text-align:right;"
| style="text-align:left;" | India
|| 3
|| 172
|| 43.00
|| 112
|| 1/0
|| 100
|| 3
|| 33.33
|| 2/25
|- style="text-align:right;"
| style="text-align:left;" | New Zealand
|| 1
|| 54
|| 54.00
|| 54
|| 0/1
|| –
|| –
|| –
|| –
|- style="text-align:right; border-top:solid 2px grey;"
| style="text-align:left;" | Overall
|| 13
|| 1072
|| 63.05
|| 234
|| 3/5
|| 218
|| 4
|| 54.50
|| 2/25
|}
Notes
References
- Preston, Hubert (ed., 1949): Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1949, London: John Wisden.
- Robinson, Ray (1985): After Stumps Were Drawn—the Best Of Ray Robinson's Cricket Writing, Collins. .