The legendary Sydney Barnes holds the record for the number of wickets taken by a bowler in league cricket (4,069); playing for Staffordshire he holds the record for the number of wickets in Minor Counties cricket (1,441), and his 189 victims for England at Test level was not overtaken until thirty years after his final appearance. In his last four Test matches in South Africa in 1913/14 he claimed 49 victims, a record for a Test series unlikely ever to be bettered. Yet his sum total of appearances in county cricket amounted to a handful of games for Warwickshire and two full seasons at Lancashire. This riveting new biography examines the life and times of this extraordinary character: his conflict with administrators and selectors; the mechanics of his success as a bowler; and his long career as a professional, which did not end until he was well into his sixties. In an age when cricketers were either Gentlemen or Players, Sydney Barnes was a professional through and through. This story of a cricketing enigma chronicles as well as any the demise of 19th Century Victorian values and the rise of the working man.

Buy now at Amazon