Former Australia Skipper Barry Jarman Passes Away
Published - 18 Jul 2020, 12:14 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:31 AM
Former Australia Test captain Barry Jarman has passed away aged 84 after an illness. The former wicketkeeper was the 33rd Test captain for Australia. He represented his country in 19 Test matches between 1959 and 1969. In first-class cricket, he represented the South Australia side and made 191 first class appearances across 13 seasons.
Barry Jarman made his Test debut in Kanpur during the tour of India in 1959. However, he could not cement his place in the side as Australia preferred Wally Grout. In fact, Barry Jarman had to be Grout’s reserve for 27 Tests over six series. After his debut in 1959, he played his next Test against England in 1962.
It was the home series against India in 1967-68 when he finally became a regular in the side. In that same season when Australia toured England for the Ashes, he was even named captain for the Headingley Test after Bill Lawry missed out due to injury.
Barry Jarman played his 19th and last Test match at his home ground in Adelaide against West Indies before calling time on his international career. The last phase of his international career coincided with the emergence of Rod Marsh. In his Test career, he scored 400 runs at 14.81 and took fifty catches and four stumpings.
In first-class cricket, he scored 5615 runs at 22.73 and took 431 catches and 129 stumpings in 191 matches, a wicket-keeping record bettered at the time among Australians only by Grout and Bert Oldfield.
After hanging his boots, he joined the ICC as a match referee and oversaw 25 Tests and 28 ODIs until 2001. The most notable match of his career as a referee was the one the abandoned Test match between West Indies and England at Jamaica in 1998. Barry Jarman had called off the game within an hour due to the dangerous nature of the pitch.
He was also the match referee for the infamous Centurion Test between South Africa and England in 2000 that saw two declarations at 0 for 0 with Hansie Cronje later confirming that he’d been influenced by bookies to get a result from a rain-affected game. However, Jarman later stated he had not seen anything untoward.
