Former Test batsman Tommy Andrews became his mentor at the club and in 1933–34, Barnes made his first-grade cricket debut as a batsman/wicket-keeper against Paddington, facing the bowling of Hunter Hendry and Alan McGilvray.

In response, Barnes took a job with a garage in Mosman but after finding that the necessary travel interfered too much with playing cricket, he found alternative employment, demonstrating motorbikes in the city.

[17] He appeared to have reached the landmark when scoring 127 not out against Western Australia, but the New South Wales Cricket Association retrospectively deemed the match to be not of first-class status, angering Barnes.

[20] Unfortunately for Barnes, he broke his wrist while exercising on the sea voyage to England for the 1938 tour,[21] keeping the injury secret until the tourists had departed Gibraltar, for fear of being sent home.

[22] On arrival in England, he therefore did not play an innings until the last day of June, missing exactly half of the 30 first-class matches scheduled for the tour, including the first two Tests, both of which were drawn.

[23] The third Test was a wash-out and he was not picked for the fourth, which the Australians won, although in his autobiography he claimed that he was considered as a candidate to be wicketkeeper, having deputised for Ben Barnett in that role in tour matches against Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire.

A shortage of tanks and the military regimen led to boredom and Barnes used his hitherto ignored trade background to his advantage, seeking a release to join a tank-making company, which was granted.

I like to take the shine out of a bowler [sic] and I love to hear the ball rattling the pickets, or soaring over the fence ... My footwork was quick and I often caused delight by stepping back feet outside the leg stump and square-cutting ...

Having opened the innings, he made his top Test score of 234 and helped to set a world-record 405 run fifth-wicket partnership with Don Bradman, a record that still stands today.

[41][42] On a rain-affected pitch Arthur Morris was out at 1/24 and Ian Johnson came out as a nightwatchman He and Barnes angered the crowd by launching into a series of bad light appeals – up to 12 were counted – before the umpires gave way and play was ended with an hour to spare.

In his autobiography, he claimed that he went as a representative for a wine and spirits company, although after the initial mention of that there is no further word and he appears also to have dealt in commodities that were in short supply because of rationing in England.

Arriving back with several state games having already been played, he failed to make runs for New South Wales and was not picked for the first two Tests against the Indian tourists, Bill Brown taking over as opener with Morris.

Wisden reported it thus: Barnes needed a score to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the Test Selectors and he spent all Saturday over 131 runs while 20,000 impatient spectators barracked loudly.

[60] Following their performances during the Australian season, Barnes and Morris were favoured as Australia's first-choice opening pair, while Brown batted out of position in the middle order in the first two Tests.

[63] Barnes and Morris shared century opening partnerships at Lord's and The Oval, where their 117 run stand dwarfed the 52 all out made by the entire England team.

[25] In England's first innings of the third Test, he was hit in the ribs by a full-blooded pull shot from Dick Pollard from the bowling of Ian Johnson, and had to be carried from the pitch by four policemen.

[68] An important concern for Barnes, when returning from the United Kingdom to Australia, was to avoid paying customs duties on the enormous amount of goods he acquired through various deals during the tour.

[69] Barnes played in Bradman's testimonial match at the MCG in December 1948, but otherwise made himself unavailable for first-class cricket, preferring to pursue business interests.

He wrote a regular column for Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, prosaically titled "Like It or Lump It", in which he often criticised the administration of the game and the amounts paid to Australia's leading cricketers.

[70] Barnes was one of a number of cricket writers of the immediate post-war era who adopted a confrontational tabloid style of journalism, in contrast to the more sedate reporting of the 1930s.

These included jumping the turnstile at a ground when he forgot his player's pass; insulting the Royal Family; theft from team-mates; drunkenness; and stealing a car.

[70] Acting on legal advice, Barnes sued Raith for libel and engaged Sydney's leading barrister, Jack Shand KC, as counsel.

[70] As Barnes began his testimony on the second day of proceedings, Raith's counsel announced settlement of the case and commented to the court, "seldom in the history of libel actions has such a plea failed so completely and utterly".

[72] In an analysis of the Barnes libel case, Gideon Haigh wrote, "far from becoming a watershed in player-administrator relations, it may even have discouraged players contemplating defiance of the Board but lacking the wherewithal to retain a hotshot criminal barrister.

Nevertheless, the selectors overlooked him for the first Test and in the following state match, against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval, Barnes offered to act as twelfth man to provide an opportunity for a younger player, Ray Flockton.

During a drinks break on the second day of the match, he appeared on the ground in a suit and tie, (rather than 'whites') carrying superfluous items such as cigars, iced towels, a mirror and comb, a radio and a clothes brush.

The crowd initially responded well to the joke, but their mood soured when the interval extended beyond its scheduled time and Barnes received criticism for delaying the game.

[77] His first movement was back and across the crease to cover the stumps from the view of the bowler, putting him in position to play the hook, leg glance, sweep and his favourite square cut shot.

[78] Journalist Ray Robinson called Barnes the Artful Dodger of cricket, alluding to both his batting style and his off-field business dealings, and wrote that he "would rather steal a run like a pickpocket than hit an honest four with a straightforward stroke.

"[79] Robinson summarised his safety-first approach in going so far back as the bowler delivered: Though this routine made his play air-tight in one way, it simplified opposing captains' field-placing to curb his scoring, it left him with a back-foot addict's liability to go leg-before-wicket or be caught behind on either side, and it allowed his attackers to bowl their most awkward length ... he could have made more runs since the war as a stroke-player, and won popular backing as a candidate for the title of world's best batsman, instead of the austere distinction of looking the hardest Australian to get out.