A phenomenal but soon to be forgotten centaury from Ed Barnard.
There's a common misconception around the cricketing world that County Cricket is easy, a belief that they themselves could waltz in and score an unbeaten centaury or take a five wicket hall. A belief that international caliber players find it tedious and boring due to its simplicity and lack of difficulty for them. This is far from the case. Take this scenario if you will; your side's back is against the wall, its 32/4 in your second innings and your still 75 runs behind, your facing the best bowling attack in your league complete with an two internationals and the highest wicket taker in the league last year, you are in a large, prestigious and intimidating stadium filled with eager home supporters cheering on the opposition and the wicket you are playing on has warranted the loss of 24 wickets in just 150 overs. Now, if you can come in under those circumstances in the apparent 'easy' county championship and still score a centaury then you are simply another level of cricketer, a level of cricketer which can put pressure on your countries national selectors to pick you, a level of cricketer who is just another class plain and simple. It would be hard to replicate this over specific scenario though, except this scenario has taken place before, in fact it happened just last week and the man who stood up and showed his credentials and potential as another class was in fact Mr Edward George Barnard.
Ed Barnard was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire in the west of England. His father, Andrew Barnard, was an English cricketer who was playing for Shropshire at the time. Only ever to make list A appearances, his dad by his own accounts failed on fully fuflling his potential and dream, so when his two sons showed a keen interest and talent in cricket he was determined not to let the same happen to them. Through rigorous training routines and a desire to live and breath cricket Ed blossomed into a promising young star who was picked into the Worcestershire academy, from there his cricket went from strength to strength reaching a pinnacle when in 2015, at just 19 years of age, he made his debut for Worcestershire. He displayed his eager young talent across all three formats and across seven years at the club Ed has posted some amazing numbers earning him the respect and constant selection for his club. Ed is a bowling all rounder with 237 wickets at just over 28 apiece to his name in first class cricket, batting wise he has notched three centauries and seventeen fifties earning him a respectable 31 run average, crucial in cementing his spot in Worcestershire's middle to lower order. His subdued career strike rate in first class cricket of 51.5 shows that he is a batsman of patience and control, two much needed attributes when trying to steer your side out of a collapse.
And late on in day two, with Worcestershire already four wickets down in their second innings and still 75 runs behind, many fans believed that there wouldn't be any cricket to be played tomorrow. A sorry and disappointing end for Worcestershire who had hoped to travel down to Trent Bridge and spark an unlikely upset against the over arching favorites for division two, this is not how it had turned out. Having been put into bat on day one, a tricky, soft and grassy wicket provided much problems for the Worcestershire batting order, even before you looked down the other end to see the likes of Stuart Broad, Luke Fletcher or Dane Patterson tearing in. The South African took charge bowling relentlessly and ruthlessly and destroying the middle order, awarding himself a career best 8fer and bowling out Worcester before tea for just 159. The wicket wasn't easy and in reply a determined Worcester bowling attack lead by Leach but also accompanied by Barnard struck back and did their fair share of relentless and ruthless bowling as dismantled Nott's middle order and bowled out the home side for 266. This was far from the end of the wicket taking roller-coaster which day one and two ended up becoming, as in just twelve overs Broad and Fletcher struck dynamite and with the dismissal of the high flying captain Dolliver, Worcestershire were in all sorts of trouble, 32-4 just twelve overs in, out stride Ed Barnard.
After failing in the first innings poor Ed had slumped low in confidence, having been promoted up the order from 7 to 6 due to good early season performances with the bat, he had failed to make any score of substance and this paired with some second fiddle mediocre bowling of late had meant that the Shrophsire lads place in the side was up for debate. This mountain of pressure and expectation was only piled on heavily on top of the high pressures of the game in hand, slump to an innings defeat and leave Trent Bridge with only a dismal three points and slump down to bottom of the County Championship division two table. The long and short of the scenario was that Worcester would have to find something from somewhere to salvage any hopes of a result in this game, all their remaining hope lay rested on the shoulders of Ed.
He began slowly, exercising his patience and control in the early stages of his innings, refusing to prod or poke at any full delivery and avoiding the temptatious lure of a false half volley from Stuart Broad, it wasn't faultless, he survived a couple of early scares from Broad, a loud LBW shout and an edge narrowly evading the hungry slip cordon. But, perfect or not he was still there, and starting to grow in confidence. The loss of Jack Haynes with the score on 99 threatened to slow proceedings even more, but this wasn't the case. Joined at the crease by Ben Cox, Ed decided that aggression was a better plan of action then defensive and launched an assault, slashing 10 balls to the fence on his way to racing to a quite marvelous centaury. Broad and Patterson opted a half leg theory to him, dropping two men out into the deep, but he pulled magnificently, cutting the two sweepers in half and frustrating the english fast bowler. It was his drives and sweeps which then took control later into the day as more spin was introduced, a dominant stroke off the front foot through the covers of the bowling of Liam Patterson-White bringing up the pairs 100 run partnership. This accolade did nothing to slow Barnard's progress as he motored on and then nearing the end of the day got deep in his crease and worked Luke Fletcher into the off side to bring up a well deserved century. Going into day three his side were 225-5, Barnard's defiance the day before was to be admired and duly celebrated by the travelling fans, into day three however and the early loss of partner Cox for a well deserved 50 signified a change in tactics for Barnard. Showing his intent by charging down the wicket to Patterson White and dispatching his delivery into the media end for his first and only six of the innings, his onslaught kept coming as he added a thunderous seven more boundaries to his total, once more showing his comfort and ability when facing the short ball, pulling excellently. As wickets continued to fall steadily at the other end Barnard continued on unperturbed, driving the Notts captaincy to the fence with distain, the loss of Finch who had survived nicely and chipped in a handy 33 really opened the floodgates with the last two wickets falling for just six runs and leaving Barnard stranded at the other end for a quite frankly incredible 163 not out.
Worcestershire put up a seemingly impossible at one stage 339 all out and managed to set a target of relative respectability of 233, Notts showed their class and a quickly dying pitch and waltzed home with time and five wickets to spare. So, Barnard's defiant innings was all in vein however, had he not contributed what he had then they would have only been defending 70 runs in the final innings, not enough time to collect anymore bonus points. Had Barnard not displayed such an honest and true testament to composure control and defiance then Worcestershire would have been walked right over and trounced, damaging their confidence immensely, decreasing the amount of bonus points they collected and slumping them rock bottom of the County Championship as a whole, Barnard's innings was quite fantastic and earned them more points and heaps of confidence and confidence is invaluable.
His 163 not out came in 310 deliveries at a strike rate of 52.58, it accounted for 48 percent of his teams total and soaked up 449 minutes at the crease. A truly unbelievable and fascinating innings, one which I will not forget for a long time.
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