Ken Barrington - Playing Style

Playing Style

Ken's batsmanship displayed different qualities which were not so glamorous, perhaps, but no less essential: determination, courage, application and overwhelming dedication to the task in hand...How reassuring it would have been last summer to have seen that familiar figure once again – square-on stance, cap pulled down, sleeves rolled up, jutting jaw, ready for anything that bowlers could unleash.

John Major

Ken Barrington started was a free-scoring off-side player, but determined to regain his place he opened his stance and became a defensive leg-side player. In the 1960s he was the backbone of the England team, whose batting had proved so fragile to the Australian bowling in the 1958-59 Ashes series, but he was a match-saver rather than a match-winner, always best in a crisis. The selectors, press and public thought that he surrendered the initiative too much to the bowlers, but a batsman of his calibre could not be ignored. He was a great worrier and had trouble sleeping during a Test match or if he was not out overnight, which lead in turn to exhaustion. As a batsman he was a nervous waiter in the dressing room and preferred to bat at number three to reduce the tension. He would smoke cigarettes to calm himself down and would watch closely to see how the wicket was playing. Barrington took his time walking out to the crease and the Australian wicket-keeper Wally Grout said "Whenever I saw Ken coming to the wicket, I thought the Union Jack was trailing behind him". Once there he would inspect the pitch and subject it to "incessant prodding", and would hold up play if the captain changed the field so that he could inspect it. A nervous starter he would make 20–30 runs quickly enough, but gave chances to the bowlers, who tried to take advantage of this. Once settled he would slow down and would sink into lethargy until he neared his century, which four times in Tests he brought up with a massive pull for six. Yet there was method even in this, fielding captains tended to add close-fielders in the 'nervous nineties', so Barrington just hit the ball over their heads into the outfield.

After his initial failure as a Test batsman in 1955 Barrington "set out to eliminate fun from his game and replace it with something very near impregnability". Ian Chappell wrote with feeling "Every so often you encounter a player whose bat seem about a yard wide. It's not, of course. It just seems that way. England's Ken Barrington was one. Our own Bill Lawry was another. Gee, they were hard to dislodge". This was not always appreciated by the selectors, spectators and the press; and he once met a man on a train who told him "I always switch off the television when you come in". This lack of appreciation may have been affected by the fact that he scored most of his centuries overseas and that he could play entertaining strokes, but chose not to do so. He was controversially dropped from the England team after 57 Tests for taking over seven hours to make 137 against a weak New Zealand attack in 1965 in which he "almost brought the game to a standstill". But when quick runs were needed in the Fifth Test at Melbourne in 1962–63 he surprised everyone by smashing a hundred off 122 balls and bringing up the century with a six into the stands. Though he rarely expressed open dissent he used to pull faces if he disagreed with an umpire or though that the light was too bad or the bouncers too frequent. His grimacing and nervous jump when receiving hostile fast bowling led some to believe that he was afraid, but he stood up to Wes Hall, Chester Watson, Charlie Griffith and Peter Pollock even if injured.

His square stance made the cover drive difficult and Barrington eliminated it from his scoring strokes, even so bowlers attacked the off-stump "It wasn't that he was weak there, but merely he was less strong" as Richie Benaud explained. Barrington never lost his ability as a spinner, and it made him very effective against spin bowling, especially that of Benaud. His Surrey team mate Jim Laker wrote "His concentration was such that when facing slow bowlers, he would actually watch the ball spinning in the air and play it accordingly". His one weakness that he was not a good runner, he seldom wanted to relinquish the strike and thought quick singles tired a batsman out. Sometimes a keen batting partner would rush up the wicket only to find Barrington waiting for him to scramble back. John Edrich called him "the worst in the world", and his West Country accent meant that "won" (one or run) and "wait" sounded alike. His greatest strength was that he was a good tourist, averaging 69.18 in Tests abroad, though his home average of 50.71 was hardly negligible. He also made 14 of his 20 Test hundreds in foreign fields, which led to his being appreciated by overseas more than he was at home, where his good humour when playing to the crowd won him widespread admiration in Australia and hero-worship in India.

As a selector Barrington watched some 80 days of county cricket each year to check new talent and help choose the team. From 1976 he was the manager or assistant-manager in every England tour. In those days a manager led the social side of the tour with speeches and dinners, which initially caused him some difficulty, relations with the local cricketing authorities, umpires and the TCCB as well as coaching and training the side. His strengths were that he had toured these countries before, had contacts, a natural good humour and was an excellent ambassador for the game he loved. As a coach few were better at fielding practice and helping batsmen with their technique in the nets. While he did not coach bowlers so well he could guide them through the weaknesses of the opposition batsmen and general strategy. Although he often grumbled to his team and off the cuff to the English press he was always diplomatic in his official statements. He was an avuncular figure popular with the England players who held him in great respect and called him 'the Colonel', but could also tease him and "eagerly awaited the traditional Barrington reaction of hands on hips, eyes cast in the air and a resigned shake of the head".