Cricket: Barnett remains a robust romantic

Super Cup final: Wise old campaigner steps out at Lord's today for another final and another county; Stephen Brenkley meets the veteran of Gloucestershire proving his worth

KIM BARNETT has been playing professional cricket for 20 years. Anybody who supposes he is now going through the motions towards the end of a long career, a journeyman preventing the youthful cream of English batsmanship from rising to its rightful place, has been drinking too much of the sour milk readily available in the game.

"I wasn't from a particularly wealthy background and the idea of playing sport, any sport, and getting paid for it has always been amazing," he said. "It still is and I never forget what a privilege it is to be doing this, not when I consider how many others want to be doing it."

He spoke with the air of a man suffering permanent scars from pinching himself every morning to ensure he is not dreaming. Not that it should be tempting to exaggerate the romance in his soul. Barnett remains a hard- nosed, mentally tough pro, one of the last of the breed. He might love the game, be grateful for what it has done for him but you do not survive as a player until the age of 39 having been, for 13 years, captain of Derbyshire where they might as well run degree courses in the art of political machination, by having the constitution of Little Nell.

Barnett and Derbyshire finally divorced last winter to the apparent relief of both parties. The marriage had lasted too long. Too much had happened for them to stay together but his parting gifts were 1,229 first-class runs at 47 and a robust contribution in their progress to an unlikely berth in the NatWest Trophy final.

He returns to Lord's today in another final for another county. This is the Benson and Hedges Super Cup in which Gloucestershire, where he has signed a three-year contract, will be favourites to lose to Yorkshire. There is a substantial school of thought, probably with enormous class sizes, that the limited-overs competition, contested by the teams who finished in the top eight of last year's County Championship, is a meaningless farrago. It is deemed to be so detrimental to the English game that scientists might as well have proved that it will have the same effect on the game as its sponsors' product on smokers' lungs.

But it has its allure. This will be Gloucestershire's first final for 22 years, Yorkshire's first for 12. Tickets are sought after in the two counties but the real measure is that Lord's will not be full today. Barnett will be the oldest man in the match - only Tim Robinson of Notts is older in the first-class game - and his presence will attract a tart word or two. Not least will they deride the highly personalised stance, straight on, stumps exposed, designed, nay custom built, to play to off as if leg had leprosy.

"It's a long time ago now but when I started out it was completely different," he said. "I used to play back and across and clip it through the on side. Not so long ago I watched a video of Derbyshire's NatWest final in 1981. Ian Botham was doing some commentary and he mentioned that bowlers had to be careful bowling at this lad's legs. He was referring to me. I was a bit surprised to hear that but that's how it was. I changed because while it might have looked better I was also getting out. It's about getting runs in the end and I know it's disconcerting for bowlers."

But it is not the stance which so annoys those who have the panacea for English cricket, it is his age. Yet the man who has scored more than 25,000 runs is now in the top 100 run-scorers of all time with an average of 40 plus. He must have something to teach the young tyros at Glorious Glorster; they must have something to learn. Teams surely must blend talented youth and proven experience.

"When I went down there I was most concerned about my fitness, although I've always looked after that side of my game. It occurred to me that the younger boys would say, well he can bat but what about the rest of his game. I came third in the pre-season fitness test and then I couldn't get a run so I suppose they might've been saying, he's fit enough but he can't bat."

He has long since recovered, as old pros do, and in the NatWest quarter- final at Glamorgan on Wednesday scored a well-ordered 68 on a pitch with some early moisture. Barnett has had a solid county career, broken only by four Test caps, a single one-day international in which he was run out for 84 and never played again and the rebel tour to South Africa led by Mike Gatting ("there were political issues but I think it would be difficult for anyone to deny that we were professionals who went for the money").

But in a way it could all be said to be wasted. Kim Barnett started out as a leg spinner but when it was discovered he could bat, that became a secondary discipline. He remained an apprentice. He was tweaking the ball before Shane Warne discovered peroxide. How the game might have been changed had balding Barnett been given continued encouragement.

He became a shrewd captain who not only conceived but was also brave enough to execute the idea of rotating seam bowlers. Derbyshire had a deliberate policy: they signed seven of them. Derbyshire was always a maelstrom, of course. He was glad to be rid of the captaincy but found life after it difficult under the Australian Dean Jones. There were rows, fines and recriminations. Barnett was not totally blameless. Jones departed, the troubles didn't. Eventually, it became too much. He had to go.

"I'm glad it was an amicable parting. I've still got many friends there, I still speak often to the groundsman, the one who prepared my pitches." On which subject he is forthright. Batsmen, he said, should learn to bat on a variety of surfaces. "It evens itself out and if they are good enough they will come through and be the better for it. Good net facilities, they're important.

"I think the game has a future even if it's crunch time for England again. There are more bowlers coming through than for a few years. As for batting, well they say the one-day and the Sunday League in particular have ruined it. I look at Graham Gooch. He got 8,000 Sunday runs, a record [Barnett himself is second] and 45,000 first-class. Didn't seem to do him much harm." Or Kim Barnett.