Jack Barrett

Portrait of Jack Barrett in 1890
Personal information
Full name	John Edward Barrett
Born	(1866-10-15)15 October 1866 South Melbourne
Died	6 February 1916(1916-02-06) (aged 49) Peak Hill, Western Australia
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Batting	Left-handed
Bowling	Right-arm medium
Relations	Edgar Barrett (brother)
International information
National side	Australia
Test debut (cap 55)	21 July 1890 v England
Last Test	11 August 1890 v England
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1884/85–1892/93	Victoria
Career statistics
Competition Tests First-class Matches 2 50 Runs scored 80 2039 Batting average 26.66 25.81 100s/50s 0/1 0/13 Top score 67* 97 Balls bowled 0 965 Wickets 0 21 Bowling average – 16.00 5 wickets in innings 0 3 10 wickets in match 0 1 Best bowling – 6/49 Catches/stumpings 1/0 16/0
Source: [1]

John Edward Barrett (15 October 1866 in South Melbourne – 6 February 1916 at Peak Hill, Western Australia) was an Australian cricketer who played two Tests in 1890. He worked as a medical doctor.

Barrett was educated at Wesley College in Melbourne before going on to Melbourne University to study medicine.^[1] His father was a doctor in South Melbourne, and his older brother was also a doctor.^[2]

A careful batsman, reliable in a crisis, Jack Barrett played first-class cricket for Victoria from 1885 to 1893.^[3] Despite having missed many of Victoria's matches owing to his medical studies, he was selected to tour England in 1890 with the Australian team.^[4]

On his Test debut, in the first Test of the series at Lord's, Barrett became the first Australian batsman to carry his bat in Test cricket.^[5] In the second innings he opened the innings and batted for 280 minutes and scored 67 not out of a team total of 176.^[6] On the tour as a whole he was second in the Australian batting averages with 1305 runs at 22.89.^[4] According to A. G. Moyes, he "did a splendid job, showing unlimited patience and splendid defence, though he lacked grace and charm in technique to relieve the monotony".^[7] He made his highest first-class score of 97 (and 73 not out in the second innings) in the final match of the tour against an England XI at Manchester.^[8]

In addition to his cricketing skills, Barrett was also a leading Australian rules footballer, playing for South Melbourne in the late 1880s and early 1890s, topping the Victorian Football Association (VFA) goal kicking in 1889 with 40 goals.^[9]

Barrett undertook further medical studies in England after the cricket tour, earning an MRCS diploma in surgery.^[10] He retired from cricket at the age of 26 to pursue his medical career.^[1] At the time of his death in the goldfields town of Peak Hill, Western Australia, he had been practising there for some years.^[10]

• List of Victoria first-class cricketers

• Jack Barrett at ESPNcricinfo

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jack Barrett (cricketer).

• Atkinson, G. (1982) Everything you ever wanted to know about Australian rules football but couldn't be bothered asking, The Five Mile Press: Melbourne. ISBN 0 86788 009 0.