Fred Barratt (12 April 1894 – 29 January 1947) played first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club from 1914 to 1931 and represented England in five Test matches, one in the home series against South Africa in 1929 and four on the inaugural Test series against New Zealand in the 1929–30 season.
Picked for Nottinghamshire to play against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in one of the set-piece season-openers at Lord's in 1914, he took eight wickets for 91 runs in the first innings.
[4] Barratt then lost the next four years of his cricket career to the First World War and when it resumed in 1919, according to his obituary in Wisden, "he was slow in finding his old form".
[7] And in 1921 against Hampshire, he made 79 out of a partnership of 129 in 50 minutes for the eighth wicket with Dodger Whysall that led Nottinghamshire to an unlikely victory after they had fallen to 65 for six in search of 286 to win.
[10][11] He maintained form in 1923, with 101 wickets and made the highest score of his career so far with 92 in "a wonderful display of hitting" against Leicestershire.
The first, an unbeaten 139 which remained his highest score, came in a high-scoring match on an easy pitch with short boundaries at Coventry, and set some records.
Nottinghamshire's total of 656 for three declared was the highest at the time for the loss of only three wickets, and four of the five batsmen used – George Gunn, Whysall, Willis Walker and Barratt – made hundreds.
Less than two weeks later, Barratt made his second century, this time hitting an undefeated 110 in the home match against Glamorgan at Trent Bridge.
[21] Bowling alongside Harold Larwood and Bill Voce in "an attack superior to that of any other county", Barratt took, in all matches, 129 wickets at a cost of 21.24 runs each.
In the winter of 1929–30, MCC picked tour parties to visit the newly Test-playing West Indies and New Zealand.
[27] There was one last hurrah as a batsman: against Kent, he and Sam Staples put on 82 in half an hour, and in Barratt's innings of 72 there were five sixes.