Spirit On The Water (9 page)

Trumper had been put down the order to save him from the new ball. He joined Armstrong who drove Foster for three. In the next over from Barnes, Armstrong nicked his first ball and was caught behind. Australia were 11 for 4 and Barnes had four wickets for one run!

Play resumed after a short break for rain and Barnes did not seem himself. A full toss went for four byes. At the end of the over Barnes had to leave the field. He had been unwell all week and nearly did not play. After lunch, Foster bowled Trumper with the total on 33 and Barnes was back on the field. Minnett, who had scored a fine 90 in the First Test, came in and immediately nicked Barnes to third slip and was dropped. After scoring two runs, he skied Barnes to Jack Hobbs at cover and Australia had collapsed to 38 for 6.

Barnes, who came off his sickbed to play, had the extraordinary figures of 11 overs, 7 maidens, 5 wickets for 6 runs. He didn’t get any more wickets in the innings and finished with 5 for 44 off twenty-three overs. He nearly had the last wicket of Whitty. All the players, including Whitty himself, thought that he had been clean bowled. As they trooped off the field, Bob Crockett,
12
the umpire at square leg, insisted that the ball had come off the wicket-keeper’s pads and called them all back. Whitty was given not out and the last pair added another 35 runs enabling Australia to reach a total of 184, veritable riches after being 38 runs for 6 wickets down.

An incident occurred during Australia’s innings that illustrates the testy side of Barnes’s character but also his mental strength. At 125 for 8, he had been brought back to try and finish off the innings. He was meticulous in his field placing – and it was always him that set his field not the captain. He was taking rather longer than usual to get the field just how he wanted it and some of the crowd started barracking and telling him “to get on with it” and other such terms of encouragement.

Barnes resented this, threw down the ball, folded his arms and refused to bowl until the noise stopped. He was a professional, going about his business. It didn’t matter to him that he was in the middle of a Test match surrounded by thousands of Australians. He was not prepared to carry on if some of the Aussie hoi polloi were going to jeer at him. Luckily for him, the Melbourne members did not approve of the barracking and cheered his act of defiance.

An Australian critic wrote the next day:

Nice to see Australian press support for an England player!

Barnes had made his point to the crowd and, more importantly, he had made his point to the Australian batsmen. Hearne hit a century and Rhodes scored 61 when England batted and they established a first innings lead of 81. Foster got 6 for 91 in Australia’s second innings and there were another 3 wickets for Barnes. England only needed 219, which they reached comfortably. They lost only 2 wickets. Jack Hobbs completing the first of his twelve centuries against Australia.

England had achieved a remarkable victory against all expectations. Barnes’s opening spell when he had destroyed the Australian top order had inflicted a major psychological blow. In the next Test at Adelaide, England went 2 – 1 up, with Barnes taking another 8 wickets and Hobbs getting his highest ever Test score of 187.

Then it was back to Melbourne again. Australia were put in by Douglas and bowled out for 191 on the first day with Barnes taking 5 for 74. England then amassed 589 with a record opening partnership from Hobbs and Rhodes of 323. Johnnie Douglas
showed that he too could bowl a bit by taking 5 wickets and Australia were bowled out a second time for 173. The Ashes had come home! England went on to win the last Test too and Barnes finished the series with 34 wickets. Not bad for a
thirty-eight
-year-old North Staffordshire League player.

The next opportunity that Barnes had to demonstrate his bowling prowess on the international stage was the Triangular Tournament in the summer of 1912. South Africa were now considered strong enough to compete with England and Australia. The ICC (the Imperial Cricket Council as it was known as then) decided to hold an international championship every four years.

The Tournament did not go well and was not repeated. First of all, the weather that summer was very poor and three of the nine Test matches had to be abandoned due to rain. Secondly, as the
Daily Telegraph
pointed out at the time: “Nine Tests provide a surfeit of cricket, and contests between Australia and South Africa are not a great attraction to the British public.” Finally, although England were able to field a very capable side, the other two countries were under strength.

South Africa were not the force they had been a few years earlier when they had beaten England. They still had two world class batsman in A.D. Nourse and Herbie Taylor but many of their teammates struggled in the English conditions. Australia were not able to field their best side. In a forerunner to the Packer crisis of the late 1970s, the Australian players were in dispute with the Australian Cricket Board. Six of their top players, including Clem Hill and Victor Trumper, didn’t make the trip.

England, led by C.B. Fry, won the Tournament winning four Tests and drawing the other two. Barnes continued where he had left off in Australia. He took an incredible 34 wickets in three games against South Africa. Test matches in England at the time were
played over three days only. This fact, combined with the poor weather, meant that England’s first two games with Australia were draws. In the deciding match against Australia at the Oval, Barnes took 5 for 30 in the first innings off twenty-seven overs to once again blow away the Australian batsmen. This was to be a ‘timeless Test’ to ensure a result but England wrapped up victory on the fourth day.

Aside from the exploits of Sydney Barnes, the most notable incident of the series was Australia’s Jimmy Matthews taking two hat tricks in the same Test match. He got one in each innings of the opening match against South Africa. This is the only time that a bowler has taken two hat tricks in the same match in Test history, a record that seems likely to remain unbroken. Both hat tricks were taken on the same day after South Africa followed on. Amazingly, Matthews took no other wickets in the match. Another curiosity is that the third victim in each case was débutant wicket-keeper Tommy Ward. The only ‘King Pair’ achieved on début in Test cricket, an unenviable record.

In
Wisden’s
review of the 1912 season, Barnes was described as “the best bowler in the world.” It continued “The skill with which he broke both ways while keeping a perfect length all the time, was wonderful.” In those days,
Wisden
was very much part of the cricket establishment and over the years it had been reluctant to give full credit to Barnes for his achievements. Barnes’s stubbornness and his sense of self worth shine through in his every confrontation. He was the Keir Hardie of cricket, sixty years ahead of his time in his rejection of the class system that dominated the English cricket world. This naturally did not go down well with the cricket authorities. Now though,
Wisden
had been finally won over.

Barnes had achieved great things and all on his own terms. 140 Test wickets at an average of just under 18. A major contribution
to winning the Ashes back for England. Player of the Tournament in the first ‘world championship’. There was one performance left which would confirm his divine status. The tour to South Africa in the winter of 1913/14.

With only three countries playing Test cricket, sometimes there were no Test matches during a summer and that was the case in 1913. So Barnes went back to playing for Porthill Park and Staffordshire. He did however play regularly, and with great success, in the Gentlemen v Players games. These were usually in front of full houses at Lords or the Oval and deemed by Barnes to be a fitting stage for his talents. These games may seem anachronistic nowadays but they did provide Barnes with an opportunity to play first-class cricket and he probably enjoyed putting one over the amateur gentlemen.

He reminded the cricket upper echelons of his existence by turning out for the Players XI in July that year. After taking 2 for 67 in twenty-five overs in the Gentlemen’s first innings, he took 7 for 38 in the second to help the Players to victory. That was Barnes’ only first-class game that year until September but it certainly made sure that he was not forgotten.

During September, Barnes warmed up for the tour to South Africa by playing in some representative first-class games including the Rest of England against a combined Kent and Yorkshire XI at the Oval. He bowled his team to victory with 7 for 20 in the second innings. He had taken 35 wickets in the four first-class games he played that year and had booked his place on the boat to South Africa.

In the last Test series before the First World War – there was to be no more international cricket until 1920 – Sydney Barnes, at the age of forty, set records that have still not been matched
today. He did it in his own relentless, dominating style and the tour ended with a classic Barnes dénouement.

He had been to South Africa once before when he coached and played for Claremont Cricket Club in Cape Town in the winter of 1898/99. This experience and the good form that he had been in towards the end of the summer stood him in good stead at the start of the tour. He got 36 wickets in four warm up matches and was primed for the First Test at Durban.

Barnes took 5 for 57 in South Africa’s first innings with only Herbie Taylor able to play him with any confidence. Taylor scored 109 out of a final total of 182 and was the last man to be dismissed. This was the start of an epic battle between the best bowler in the world and one of the best batsmen in the world. Barnes got him cheaply in the second innings as well as four other victims and England had won the first Test.

Many years later, Barnes was asked which batsman he had found most difficult to bowl to. He replied “Victor Trumper”. When asked if there was anyone else, he retorted “No one else ever troubled me.” This gives a clue to the confidence, some might say arrogance, that Barnes had. He could have given Herbie Taylor a mention. In a series totally dominated by Barnes, Taylor scored over 500 runs and was the only batsman that ever looked comfortable against him.

The second and third Tests were both played at Johannesburg. Barnes produced a performance in the Second Test that is still the second best bowling figures ever achieved in Test matches: 17 wickets for 159 runs. This is what
Wisden
had to say:

Wilfred Rhodes and Phil Mead scored centuries and England won by an innings and 12 runs. The Third Test was closer. South Africa were set 396 to win in the last innings and when Taylor and Zulch made 153 for the first wicket, it looked like they might do it. Barnes was made to struggle for just about the first time on the tour. After the first wicket fell, South Africa collapsed and England eventually won by 91 runs, Barnes took 5 for 102. Together with his 3 wickets from the first innings, Barnes now had 35 wickets from only three Tests.

In the tour games immediately after the Third Test, Barnes continued to take wickets. His final total of first-class wickets for the tour was 104 from just twelve games. In addition, he took another 21 wickets in two games not classified as first-class.

Around this time, he seemed to relax, or was tired or thought it was too easy and Herbie Taylor took full advantage. Barnes had a modest game against Transvaal and then, in the last game before the Fourth Test, the tourists took on Natal. Taylor scored 91 in the first innings and a century in the second, and England lost their only match of the tour. Barnes did get 5 for 44 in the first innings but only 2 for 70 in the second.

It was during this second innings that Barnes is alleged to have lost his cool. On the matting wickets of South Africa, Herbie Taylor was supreme. He had exquisite footwork and in Natal’s second innings he was playing Barnes with ease. Taylor would recount in later years that Barnes was so exasperated that he threw down the ball and refused to bowl. “It’s Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, all the time” he is reputed to have said.

Barnes later refuted these claims but, whether it was true or not, it usefully illustrates the perfectionism of the man. He could not tolerate second best in anyone, including himself. South Africa went into the Fourth Test in a positive mood. They had
run England close in the previous Test. Natal had just beaten the tourists and their champion batsman had just had the better of England’s premier bowler.

Barnes now proved his greatness and responded with 7 for 56 to bowl South Africa out for 170. When it was England’s turn to bat, only Jack Hobbs coped with the home side’s attack and for the first time in the series, South Africa had a first innings lead. Taylor scored 93 in the second innings, winning another round with Barnes but England’s leading bowler had the last laugh by taking 7 for 88 to give him 14 wickets in the match. Hobbs fell just short of a century as England hung on for a draw at 154 for 5.