New Zealand Cricket offers its condolences to the family of Trevor Barber, who passed away at a retirement home in Christchurch on Friday 7 August 2015.
Barber, 90, was New Zealand’s oldest former Test representative, having made his Test debut at his home ground, the Basin Reserve, against the West Indies in March 1956 after Bert Sutcliffe had taken ill.
Spinner Sonny Ramadhin dismissed Barber cheaply in both innings en route to a nine-wicket win for the West Indies, but the man regarded as one of the finest fieldsman in New Zealand did have the satisfaction of taking the catch that dismissed the great Sir Garfield Sobers, off his captain John Reid.
Image courtesy of the NZ Cricket Museum collection
Born in Otaki in 1925, it proved to be a solitary Test appearance for the right-handed middle-order batsman and occasional wicketkeeper who played 49 first-class games for Wellington from 1945/46 to 1958/59 before rounding out his career with one season captaining Central Districts (1959/60).
Barber had already captained Wellington to a Plunket Shield title in 1956/57, and became Central Districts’ oldest former representative.
New Zealand’s oldest living first-class cricketer is Tom Pritchard, who is 98. The baton of oldest living Test cricketer now passes to 87-year-old Reid, who was born in 1928.
