Sid Barnes - Later Playing Career

Later Playing Career

An important concern for Barnes, when returning from the United Kingdom to Australia, was to avoid paying customs duties on the enormous amount of goods he acquired through various deals during the tour. This included good quality English cloth, in very short supply in Australia at this time. Hearing a rumour that Customs officials were waiting in Sydney for him, Barnes disembarked at Melbourne and travelled to Sydney by train. The move worked and he sold his stock at a substantial profit, conservatively estimated to be equal to his tour fee.

Barnes played in Bradman's testimonial match at the MCG in December 1948, but otherwise made himself unavailable for first-class cricket, preferring to pursue business interests. He wrote a regular column for Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, prosaically titled "Like It or Lump It", in which he often criticised the administration of the game and the amounts paid to Australia's leading cricketers. Barnes was one of a number of cricket writers of the immediate post-war era who adopted a confrontational tabloid style of journalism, in contrast to the more sedate reporting of the 1930s.