Sid Barnes

Sid Barnes

Sidney George Barnes was an Australian cricketer and cricket writer. He played 13 Test matches for Australia between 1938 and 1948. Barnes averaged 63. 05 over 19 innings in a career that was interrupted by the Second World War. He helped create an enduring record when scoring 234 in the second Test against England at Sydney in December 1946. He was a member of The Invincibles, the 1948 Australian team that toured England without losing a single match.

About Sid Barnes in brief

Summary Sid BarnesSidney George Barnes was an Australian cricketer and cricket writer. He played 13 Test matches for Australia between 1938 and 1948. Barnes averaged 63. 05 over 19 innings in a career that was interrupted by the Second World War. He helped create an enduring record when scoring 234 in the second Test against England at Sydney in December 1946. He was a member of The Invincibles, the 1948 Australian team that toured England without losing a single match. In 1973, he was found dead at his home in the Sydney suburb of Collaroy; he had ingested barbiturates and bromide in a probable suicide. Barnes was a shrewd businessman who used the opportunities afforded by cricket to supplement his income through trading, journalism and property development. He 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, carrying a bizarre range of superfluous items. 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. After marrying, the couple left Tamworth to take up a lease on a remote sheep station near Hughenden in North Queensland. In 1933, Barnes joined the Tommy Andrews club and made his first-grade cricket debut as a batsman against the bowling of Hunter Hendry and Alan McGilvray.

His mother and stepfather were concerned about his potential as a potential cricket player, but he showed a great deal of confidence in his own ability. His nickname was 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. As a child, he used to collect the rents for his mother. Later in life, Barnes would recount how, as aChild, he would tell his mother about his cricketing hero, Bill O’Reilly, who was his mentor at the club. In February 1933, he scored a century against Manly bowler Manly Manly’s Alan Manly in February. This led his mother to consider him a potential future Test bowler, but she was concerned about him leaving cricket as a young man. He made his Test debut in the final international of the 1938 Australian tour of England, and was picked as the opening partner to Arthur Morris. After the war, he played in the 1948 Test series against England. He retired from Test cricket at the end of that tour, and later became a cricket writer and cricket commentator. He died in a car crash in Sydney on 16 December 1973, at the age of 48. He is survived by his wife, Hilda May Barnes, and their three children, including a son and two daughters.