Barry Richards unfortunately played only four Tests but how good was he? I asked this question when I met Sir Donald Bradman. He said, “He was as good as Sir Jack Hobbs and Sir Leonard Hutton.” Enough said.
One of the greatest batting performances ever was by Barry Richards playing for South Australia against Western Australia, at the WACA ground in Perth during November 1970, and hardly a South African is aware of the following story. At the close of play on day one, South Australia were 513 for three, and Barry had 325 not out. He had gone from 79 to 216 between lunch and tea, and from 216 to 325 after tea. He was eventually out for 356, scored off 381 balls, and was at the crease for 372 minutes. The bowlers in the Western Australia attack were Test class –none other than the great Dennis Lillee, the formidable Graeme McKenzie and the experienced Tony Lock. Barry had an uncanny cricket brain. In 1970 Bill Lawry’s Aussie team toured South Africa. They had a mystery flick-spin bowler named Johnny Gleeson. The first time we faced him was day one of the first Test at Newlands and he mesmerised all of our batsmen that day except for Barry. We had a team meeting that evening. After a short stint at the wicket, Barry had him worked out. If you saw a lot of fingers over the ball, it was the leg-break; and if you saw the ball between thumb and forefinger, it was the off-break. Gleeson was their best bowler and never once got Barry out in the series. I always tell Barry that my finest batting achievement was to keep him out of our Test team against Bobby Simpson’s Australians in 1966–67. Sadly, again, he has never been acknowledged in South Africa for his greatness.
So who is the best of these great batsmen? After much serious consideration, I am going to gently nudge Barry Richards ahead –by a hair’s breadth. Why? He is the most complete all-round batsman I have seen. He opened the batting, and that position has to be the most difficult of all the different batting positions.