CricketObituary

Eddie Barlow

Gritty South African all-rounder whose great success came against Australia

Eddie Barlow, the former South African all-rounder, who has died aged 65 from a stroke following a long illness, personified those sportsmen who through willpower maximise their ability. There were more talented players than he in the superb South African sides of the late 1960s - Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards, Mike Procter among them - but none exceeded his desire to succeed. No one who played alongside him or under his captaincy during a 21-year career - for his country, his province (he played for Eastern and Western Provinces and Transvaal) or for Derbyshire, whom he led in a forthright manner for two seasons - could fail to be dragged along by his natural competitive instincts and ebullience.

He was a chunky, determined, bespectacled, right-hand opening batsman with a low, crouched stance and the sort of dominant bottom hand, way down on the handle, that characterised the pullers and cutters rather than the taller elegant top-hand drivers of the time. Pace bowlers were frustrated by the cavalier fashion in which he would defy convention and carve them over point or the slips in a manner that was alien then but common today. His bowling was bristling, bustling, briskish medium, delivered with a round arm that promoted his away swing, and he was capable of match-turning spells, his round face turning red with the effort.

Barlow possessed a slower ball that was masterfully deceptive, an offspinner sent down head high initially so the batsman anticipated a beamer, and then dipping into the crease, the forerunner of the delivery used so effectively by the likes of Shoaib Akhtar today. He advocated fast scoring - a minimum of three runs per over, heady for that day and age - as a means of creating the time necessary to force victories. This was an innovative cricketer.

In 30 Tests, he scored 2,516 runs at an average of 45.75 and took 40 wickets at 34.05. Five of his six Test centuries and 33 of his wickets came in 14 Tests against Australia. His highest score of 201 came in the fourth Test of the 1963-64 tour, in Adelaide, during which he helped in a devastating third wicket stand of 341 in 283 minutes with Graeme Pollock - still a South African record for any wicket against Australia and their third highest against anyone. In 1970, playing for the Rest of the World against England, an unofficial series that replaced the South African tour of that year, he took a hat-trick.

Barlow made his international debut in 1961-62 against New Zealand, but it was not until his second series, in Australia two years later, that he really made an impact, confounding predictions that South Africa would fail to compete. Instead, he announced himself by scoring 209 in the second match of the tour, in Perth, against a Western Australia Combined side.

He then made his maiden Test century, 114, in his only innings of the drawn first Test in Brisbane, and followed that with 109 and 54 in the second match in Melbourne, which Australia won by eight wickets. Adelaide brought his famous stand with Pollock, who made 175, and then in the second innings of that match he took three wickets for six runs in five overs to help finish off Australia. The series was drawn 1-1.

Barlow went on to score heavily at home against Mike Smith's 1965-66 England side (although the series was lost), and played in all three of the Tests in England that followed, which South Africa won 1-0. In both the subsequent series in which Barlow faced Australia - in South Africa in 1966-67, during which he produced his best Test bowling figures of five for 85 in Cape Town, and again in 1969-70 - South Africa won handsomely, the second by 4-0. Barlow's contributions included centuries in the first and third Tests.

Born in Pretoria, Transvaal, Barlow had intended to become a teacher, gaining a geography degree at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg. He made his debut for Transvaal in 1960 and continued playing first-class cricket after South Africa was banned from the international game in 1970. His spell with Derbyshire came in 1976-78, and he played his last match with Western Province in 1981.

He then turned his attention to coaching and had been appointed Bangladesh coach in 1999 before suffering the first of his strokes the following year. Confined to a wheelchair, he went to live in north Wales, but continued coaching.

He is survived by his third wife, and by a son and daughter from his first marriage.

· Edgar John Barlow, cricketer, born August 12 1940; died December 30 2005

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