Sydney Barnes — Test Debut 1901, the Freelance Bowler's Career

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.

“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.