Ted Barratt

Edward D'Oyley 'Ted' Barratt (21 April 1844 – 27 February 1891) was an English cricketer who primarily played for Surrey in a first-class career that lasted from 1872 to 1886. A left-arm slow roundarm bowler with a remarkable capacity for drift, his most famous achievement was taking all ten wickets in an innings for the Players against the Australians in 1878. On three occasions, he took over 100 wickets in a season. His Wisden obituarist wrote of his bowling, "At his best Barratt was certainly a very fine slow bowler, being able on certain wickets to get more work on the ball than almost any other cricketers of his generation."

Standing 5'8" tall and weighing 11 st. 4 lbs, he spun a long way from leg and was especially effective against batsmen reluctant to use their feet. He had a deadly quicker ball, which went on with the arm, but his primary proclivity lay in floating the ball up to the bat, about a foot to the offside, and turning it a few inches away. WG Grace saw many "an impatient or thoughtless batsman 'spooned' in trying to hit"; indeed, even the "good" ones were prone to slashing wildly at it and often fell foul of the extra offside fieldsman that Barratt had in play. Grace gave Barratt little credit: "It was all owing to the eagerness of the batsman, who could not resist the temptation to hit out at everything off the wicket. A little thought would have shown that stepping back and cutting it, instead of hitting it on the rise, was the right way to treat it; or that quickness in running out and hitting before it pitched would have been equally effective." It is a mark of Barratt's respect for Grace and his brother EM that he never bothered with this ruse against them; indeed, he was often completely at their mercy, especially in the case of EM, who habitually destroyed his confidence.

A plumber by trade, Barratt's first engagement as a professional cricketer was at the Longsight club in Manchester in 1870 and 1871. He was taken on the Lord's ground staff in 1872 and made his first-class debut that same year with great success, taking 8/60 for the North against the South at Prince's Cricket Ground in a fixture beginning on 16 May. He played twice more that season for North v. South, as well as in four games for MCC, to whom Grace, taking a keen interest in his progress after first encountering him at Swindon, had recommended him. In seven matches, he took 25 wickets at an average of 13.48, with five or more wickets in an innings three times. In spite of this success, his next first-class match was not until 1876.