Page "Ken Barrington" Paragraph 10

The MCC tour of Pakistan had the dual purpose of spreading cricketing goodwill and providing employment and experience for young players with Test potential.

There were no Test matches, but they did play Pakistan as the MCC.

The team was managed by the genial Geoffrey Howard, the Secretary of Lancashiure and captained by Donald Carr, the captain of Derbyshire and included Fred Titmus, Brian Close, Tony Lock, Jim Parks and Peter Richardson.

Barrington made 70 not out in the first match against Karachi and 66 in the second against Sind.

The first match between Pakistan and the MCC at Lahore was a dull draw, followed by two wins for Pakistan and a close victory for the MCC by two wickets in the fourth and final game.

Barrington made 10 and 52, 43 and 11, 32 and 0 and 76 and 10 in these matches, the 43 taking 4 hours against the bowling of Fazal Mahmood.

With five other members of the team he ' kidnapped ' Idris Begh the Karachi jeweller and umpire whose decisions they thought were heavily biased.

They poured a bucket of water over him in their apartments and he was laughed at by them and two members of the Pakistani team who happened to witness the event.

Begh complained to the Pakistani captain Abdul Kardar and the matter became public, with the crowd chanting " Go home MCC " on the last day of the game.

The President of the MCC Lord Alexander offered to recall the tour and the press called for the culprits to be barred from international cricket, but Howard managed to smooth things down and the tour was completed.

In a public relations exercise the MCC played football with the Pakistan Air Force with Barrington in goal.

Even though Barrington came second in the first class averages with 586 runs ( 39. 06 ) – Richardson came first with 650 runs ( 43. 44 ) – Carr did not return a favourable report and it would be four years before he would tour again.