The End of The Cricket Career
Back in England in 1930, Barratt had what Wisden called "an unsatisfactory season". He scored 502 runs with three scores of more than 50, but his tally of wickets fell from 129 in 1929 to just 51, and their cost rose from 21 runs each to more than 31. Wisden cited wet pitches in a wet summer as a cause, but Barratt was also, by this stage, 36 years old. The following season, 1931, underlined the decline. In 21 County Championship matches, Barratt took only 24 wickets at a cost of more than 41 runs each, and he scored only 305 runs in these games at an average of 12.70. There was one last hurrah as a batsman: against Kent, he and Sam Staples put on 82 in half and hour, and in Barratt's innings of 72 there were five sixes. But by his last Championship match in August, in an admittedly strong batting line-up, Barratt was batting at No 11, and failing to take a wicket. At the end of the 1931 season, he retired from first-class cricket.
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