Hampshire’s understudy Keith Barker enjoys his moment in the limelight

SAM DALLING AT LORD’S: Forget about Kyle Abbott and Mohammad Abbas, day three belonged to Barker who flipped the game on its head with his bat and brought up his 50th Hampshire wicket with the ball

Prima facie, Kyle Abbott was Hampshire’s potential match winner here at Lord’s. And there is truth to that: 11 for 85 across the match with five-fors in both innings. Déjà vu for Middlesex who were undone by a seamer with almost identical figures here a week ago.    
 
Undoubtedly there is a headline in that. But sometimes in county cricket you need to scratch beneath the surface for the real story. For it is Keith Barker who should be deemed to have made the decisive contribution.  His first innings 84 – of which came 61 came this morning when his side added 77 – was a game changer.     
 
Not convinced? Allow me to explain.    
 
Ahead of play Hampshire trailed by 41 runs with three wickets in hand and the match was evenly poised. By the time Barker was the last man to fall - Peter Handscomb taking superb one-handed diving grab at mid-on - they had crept into a crucial 36-run lead.    
 
Not massive in cricketing terms but psychologically – in the context of the game, the conditions the recent result between the sides, and Middlesex’s batting frailties – it was huge. Momentum had shifted firmly in visitor’s favour.    

 
Now go back to yesterday. The Seaxes had Hampshire by the throat at 9 for 3. Even after a mini recovery the score was 73 for 6 when Barker strode to the middle. Now are you with me? If not, please consider the wicket he took later in the day - Martin Andersson trapped lbw – giving him 50 in club colours.
 
At the start of day three, the left-hander was watchful. But Abbott’s departure – bowled by Blake Cullen who had conceded just two runs in 4.4 overs in the morning session prior to dismissing the South African - forced a change of tactic.
 
Cullen was the first to feel Barker’s not inconsiderable power – he is built like a second row forward – with the short Mound Stand side boundary being comfortably cleared for the first of four maximums. For hopefully one of the final times, the pandemic-induced cricketing quirk of a player scuttling into the stands to retrieve the ball was visible, Ethan Bamber hopping the fence. He reappeared a minute later, carrying the ball back to his mark to commence the next over.    
 
Wary of Barker’s threat, Handscomb deployed boundary riders, as many as four on the leg-side at one point.  It mattered little. Barker took a particular shine to Tim Murtagh, striking the usually miserly Ireland international for a pair of sixes in three balls. The second took Barker from 64 to 70, making it his best knock since joining Hampshire in 2019. To end the over, Barker danced merrily down the track and swatted the bowler down the ground at a height and ferocity that forced umpire Neil Bainton to take evasive action.  
 
Barker was a relative late comer to professional cricket, having been on the footballing books of Blackburn Rovers and Rochdale as a junior, but cricket was always lurking. Not only is his godfather Sir Clive Lloyd, his namesake father played a handful of first-class games for both Guyana (then British Guiana) in the West Indies, and then later Natal, in South Africa. Barker senior also made well over 200 appearances for Rishton and then Enfield in the Lancashire League, and would later represent Lancashire Over-50s.    

Keith Barker stars as Hampshire overcome Middlesex

And it was at Enfield where Barker junior played his club cricket in the 2000s, scoring nearly 1,000 runs and taking 93 wickets in 65 outings. There he caught the eye of another Lloyd – David – and was recommended to Warwickshire. After playing 2nd XI cricket in 2008, he made a first team bow the following summer.    
 
His hard hitting and classic left-arm seam – the stock ball hoops away from the right hander – quickly established him as a regular in all formats. While his white-ball outings became more infrequent after 2011, he took 56 wickets in the Bears’ 2012 county championship win and passed the 50 wickets in a season mark twice afterwards.    
 
In all, he served at Edgbaston for a decade, claiming 497 wickets and, statistically nicely, 4,497 runs. Few could have wished him anything but well, and as send-off’s go, sealing Division Two promotion at the end of the 2018 was perfect.    
 
He is now seemingly a red-ball specialist and provides a steady hand among Hampshire’s stardust - the understudy who rarely gives less than a seven out of ten performance while also being more than capable of stand-out contributions when duty calls.  
 
For most of his career, he has taken the new ball and he did so in the first innings. Today he stepped back to allow Abbott and Abbas to work their magic. They duly did. Quickly, Middlesex were, as is familiar this season, in trouble: 26 for 3 inside eight overs.    

^{Barker and Chris Hughes celebrate winning the County Championship with Warwickshire in 2012}
 
First, Sam Robson fell under Abbas’ spell, the Pakistan seamer using the slope to shape one into the opener’s pads. Jack Davies fell next, nicking Abbott behind before Nick Gubbins was strangled down the leg-side. The left-hander turned to the umpire behind him as if expecting a signal to say it flicked the pads. It never came and Gubbins’ shuffled off as if heading to a birthday party for that uncle who nobody likes.    
 
Handscomb, who has been woefully short of runs since his debut last month, decided to counter punch. Starting on a king pair, he raced to 24 from 11 deliveries, including back-to-back mirror image cover drives off Abbott that raced to the boundary. It would have been three in the over but for some excellent fielding. 

But the bowler had the last laugh, pinning the Australian leg before, though both height and line were dubious. A few overs prior, Robbie White, provider Middlesex’s ballast in recent weeks, had been turned inside out to give a leading edge return catch to Abbas. 49 for 5 and suddenly thoughts turned to Middlesex’s 79 at the Ageas Bowl.    
 
John Simpson and Martin Andersson both came and went with the score on 67 – the latter bringing up Barker’s milestone - before James Harris and Cullen pushed past the landmark. Then came the rain and on resumption it took the Abbott-Abbas axis just 23 balls to set a paltry 66-run target. Abbott had 5 for 41, his partner 3 for 24. Together they shared 17 of the 20 Middlesex wickets, to add to the 13 they snared against the same opposition last month.    

Championship Digest: Saturday, May 15, 2021

As impressive as the duo were though, this was Barker’s Saturday. To call him a county stalwart feels like underplaying it. He is a fine cricketer who has enjoyed a fine career. He also now averages 69.6 with the bat at the Home of Cricket, with four half-centuries from seven first-class outings.  

Hampshire had reached 23-0 when once again the showers returned. With tomorrow’s forecast looking iffy there was a desire to get back out and the players returned at 6.45pm with 43 runs required and eight overs left in the day.  
 
A flurry of wickets checked Hampshire’s progress, before Sam Northeast and Tom Alsop left them needing eight runs from six balls over. Northeast chipped a sitter to Cullen who shelled it at mid-on before striking the next two balls down the ground for boundaries. That prevented a potentially farcical situation of having to return tomorrow.   
 
Victory was welcome for James Vince’s men, who were strong early season front runners. They started with a pair of emphatic wins before a failure to prise out a final Gloucestershire wicket cost them a third. That was a needle in their balloon, and led heavy defeats at Surrey and Somerset. Now they have inflicted Middlesex’s fifth loss in five. From Dr Jekyll, to Mr Hyde and back again.