by Arunabha Sengupta
Australia, 1963-64.
Bespectacled, stocky, he had more than a passing resemblance to Billy Bunter.
His first century in Test cricket came at Brisbane, in a tall scoring draw, and was overshadowed by all the controversy surrounding Ian Meckiff and throwing.
In the very next Test he hit 109 and 54, not quite elegant runs but full of bulldog tenacity. It turned out to be futile effort in a big defeat. Hence the 23-year-old opening batsman was not really the talking point.
But, by the fourth Test at Sydney he could not be ignored any further.
Australia batted and scored 345. Neil Hawke dismissed Goddard and Pithey off successive balls and beat Graeme Pollock off the next two.
What followed thereafter was four hours and 43 minutes of ruthlessness. Eddie Barlow kept cutting Richie Benaud’s famous flipper off the stumps to the cover boundary with remarkable ease. And at the other end Pollock was ruthless.
341 runs are added before Pollock lost his stump to Hawke for 175. Barlow pushed on to 201. However, he was the first to admit that Pollock’s innings was classier. “I was simply the jackal picking at the corpse, after the lion has eaten his fill.”
Big lead, but the Aussies fought back. A big sixth wicket stand, and the tourists got restless.
At five o’clock on the fourth day, Barlow went up to the skipper. “Give me a go. I have a feeling I’ll do them.” Goddard ignored him.
Barlow continued to badger the captain. “If you don’t give me the ball, you’ll be in big trouble.” The conviction in his voice made Goddard relent.
In his first over, Barlow sent down a rank long hop. Shepherd skied it for wicketkeeper Lindsay to take a miraculous catch. Two balls later, Benaud dragged one wide outside the off-stump on to his wickets.
After a few overs McKenzie hit a full-toss directly back to him. 5-2-6-3.
Early on the fifth morning victory was completed by a margin of 10 wickets.
Barlow hated being dismissed.
In the Durban Test of 1966-67, the first ball saw him hitting one back to McKenzie.
Peter Pollock tried to cheer him up. “Even Bradman made ducks.”
“Who the hell wants to emulate Bradman?” snapped Barlow.
Three years later the Australians visited again.
In the first Test at Newlands, Barlow scored a restrained 127. Then standing at first slip, he caught Stackpole, Redpath and Sheahan. Some cynic among the spectators managed to lower the Australian flag to half-mast. For all intents and purposes there it remained as South Africa won the series 4-0.
At Durban it was the famous Barry Richards-Graeme Pollock show. Barlow, batting at No 5, did not last long. “After the Lord Mayor’s show, there was no room for me out there. I was embarrassed. Those two have made a mockery of batting.”
But then he came on to bowl and got Lawry with his first ball, Chappell with his fourth, and Walters with his ninth. When bad light ended play on the second day, his figures read 1.4-1-4-3.
The following morning, in spite of the Richards-Pollock act, a fan paraded the ground with the banner “Barlow for President.”
360 runs at 51.42 that series, 11 wickets at 23.36 and 8 catches.
As an all-rounder of his day, second only to Sobers.
That was underlined when Barlow played for the Rest of the World in England in 1970 after the South African tour was cancelled.
119 at Lord’s, 5 for 66 and 142 at Trent Bridge.
His batting form deserted him after that, but at Headingly he captured 7 for 64 and 5 for 78, including a first-innings hattrick and four wickets in five balls.
Remember, the matches were deemed Tests at that time. Wisden gushed about the first Test hat-trick since Gibbs and his emulation of the four wickets in five balls captured by MJC Allom against New Zealand in 1929–30. All that was rolled back, including his seventh and eighth Test hundreds.
Sobers was incredible in that series, 588 runs at 73.50 and 21 wickets at 21.52. Barlow finished with 353 at 39.22 and 20 at 19.80.
He should have played many, many more Tests. In the 30 that he did manage to play Barlow scored 2,516 runs at 45.74, captured 40 wickets at 34.05 and grabbed 35 catches.
Eddie Barlow was born on 12 August 1940.