Howzat for a yarn? The day Barnesy was off-pitch
Mick Jagger, Paul Kelly and Elton John are among the mad cricket fans. Jimmy Barnes is not. As he points out in his upcoming book Killing Time, it wasn’t wise to arm Glaswegians with a bat.
Yet when he was on tour in the UK in 1988 and his good mate, Australian soccer champion Craig Johnston asked him to join a celebrity cricket team playing for the Sport Aid charity, Barnes said yes on the promise that drinks were involved.
The match at the Hampshire County Ground against the Australian Aboriginal XI — to commemorate the historic tour of England by 17 Indigenous players 120 years earlier — turned out to be a serious affair. It wasn’t beer and skittles, as he recalls in the upcoming third episode of the Story Time with Jimmy Barnes podcast.
“The musicians who were playing were serious cricketers — Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones) and David Essex and the team was headed by Clive Lloyd and also featured a young Steve Waugh,” Barnes recalls.
Wyman gets bowled for a duck and Barnes strides out to the crease. “I’d never played cricket in my life — I play cricket like I sing, it’s not pretty to watch,” the rocker says. “The
Aboriginal team really liked me, they loved Khe Sanh. They bowled me first ball but told the umpire it was a no ball.”
Somehow Barnes remains in the centre as a few more wickets fall until the man everyone had come to watch — West Indian legend Lloyd — walks on to the field to a huge roar.
“I’m in there and Clive’s just come in, there’s a big crowd there, all to see him and he’s the one raising all the money,” Barnes says.
“I hit the ball, go to run and he’s screaming at me to get back — he’s pointing his bat at me and in his hands, it looks like a toothpick.
“‘Don’t move, man, just don’t move or I’ll kill you.’ I almost got him run out three times and I think the Aboriginal team realised the whole game was going to be a disaster if he got out and I stayed in and they bowled me out. Clive stayed in and scored 100.”
In the third episode of his hit podcast, Barnes is joined by Australian golfing champion Peter Lonard — who hasn’t had much luck helping the rocker improve his game despite years of trying.
But Barnes reveals he did pioneer a new version of the stick and ball game while on tour — the “indoor, all-weather” competition, invented in a Coffs Harbour hotel room after a few too many post-gig drinks.
“I made that one up myself, I don’t think Pete plays that game. That came from the frustration of not being able to hit as well as Peter Lonard, so I took my game indoors,” Barnes says, laughing.
“When you’re bored on the road and (in) a different hotel every night ... sometimes out of boredom you do stupid things. I had my clubs on the road, we were putting into a glass for money and the more we drank, the bigger the game got.”
Check out a sneak preview of the third episode of the Story Time with Jimmy Barnes podcast today at storytimewithjimmybarnes.com.au