by Mayukh Ghosh
January 1963.
Tasmania Combined XI v M.C.C. at Launceston.
Keith Smith takes his 7-year old son Rick with him to watch the match.
Keith is a keen cricketer and the cricket coach in Rick’s school. That is the first taste of cricket for young Rick. Then, a few years later, he watches Garry Sobers make a couple of centuries and manages to collect his autograph. He understands that the game will occupy a major portion of his life.
In the 1980s, while reading a cricket magazine, Rick complains to his girlfriend Leanne (later his wife) about how ordinary an article is and also adds that anyone could write that stuff.
“Well, go on then.”, she says and Rick has no choice but to write something.
A piece on Leicestershire and Rhodesian batsman Brian Davison’s time at Tasmania. He sends it to Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the editor of The Cricketer magazine and he accepts it.
Rick’s father owned three cricket books. Farewell to Cricket by Don Bradman, Cricket Crisis by Jack Fingleton and ‘It isn’t Cricket by Sid Barnes. At the age of eleven Bradman and Bodyline was known to him but who was Barnes?
He asked his father.
“He was a great player, opened the batting for Bradman’s team in 1948, but he got a raw deal.”
Raw deal?
One of Bradman’s team-mates?
He was perplexed .
Reading more widely brought him in touch with Ray Robinson’s works.
His essay on Barnes titled The Artful Dodger gave Rick a true picture of Branes the cricketer and a bit about Barnes the man.
Barnes led an interesting life, seldom devoid of controversies. Rick was engrossed in his life story.
There was no real ‘life story’. Fragments of his life was written by Barnes himself and there were the odd articles which shed some light on this rather complex character. He was so besotted with Barnes that he decided to go ahead and fill this gap in the game’s literature.
Rick’s response to what made him write the book was detailed:
“As I have mentioned before I’m always interested in characters and what makes them tick, and there can be no more controversial character than Sid Barnes – fine batsman and member of Bradman’s 1948 Invincibles, but who seemed to have endless battles with administrators and arouse mixed feelings among his colleagues. His career ended with his virtual removal from the team by the Australian Board. He even instituted legal proceedings for defamation and forced some Board members to testify.”
He further added:
“My father had a copy of Sid’s book It Isn’t Cricket and my fascination probably began with reading this. I decided to do the book only if Sid’s three children were in agreement and would support the project. It took me some time to work up the courage to contact them as a perfect stranger wanting to tell their father’s story. They agreed instantly and were of great help, lending me scrapbooks and providing memories of his later life when he suffered from mental illness. Their honesty about their father’s condition was greatly appreciated and was no doubt difficult to talk about. I actually travelled up to Sydney to meet Sid Jr. who provided the scrapbooks and plenty of stories. They all agreed it should be as honest as possible – covering the good and bad aspects of his character and behaviour.
“Contacting former players was interesting, and they either liked or loathed him. Sir Donald Bradman (who said he always wanted him in his team), Bill Brown and Alan Davidson spoke in glowing terms, while others refused to comment. This was a result of Sid seeing people in black and white. If he liked you, he would do anything for you, but if not, he could be scathing. For example, he once described Ian Johnson as ‘Australia’s non-playing captain’. Some like Johnson were complimentary about Barnes’ ability, but did not like him as a person. Walter Hadlee wrote a lovely letter about playing against Barnes and getting to know him on the Australian tour of NZ in 1946.
”This dislike was amplified by his journalism which could best be described as controversial, along with the books he wrote about the game.”
Cricket’s Enigma: The Sid Barnes Story was published by ABC Books in 1999. The reviews in general were excellent and it was runner up to Gideon Haigh’s biography of Jack Iverson in the Australian Cricket Society’s ‘Book of the Year’.
The writer was even more pleased when the subject’s children loved it. They had been too young when he was playing and knew very little about that aspect of his life.
Rick’s concluding remarks on the writing of this book:
“This was the first time I had written a full biography and I found it a fascinating exercise to really study a person’s life. I have to say though, that judged against the behaviour of today, Sid’s actions would be considered very minor, but different times produce different standards.”
He has written six more biographies. Seven, in fact, if we consider the Trott brothers separately. His choice of subjects has always been intriguing and he has done justice to all of them in his books.
Oxford Dictionary defines the word enigma as ‘a riddle, a puzzling thing or person’. A definition that could have been written with Sid Barnes in mind. He needed an able biographer to do justice to his life and Rick Smith did that successfully.
Copies are usually available from Roger Page in Australia. All serious students of the game’s history should read this book.