After his initial failure as a Test batsman in 1955 Barrington "set out to eliminate fun from his game and replace it with something very near impregnability". Ian Chappell wrote with feeling "Every so often you encounter a player whose bat seems about a yard wide. It's not, of course. It just seems that way. England's Ken Barrington was one. Our own Bill Lawry was another. Gee, they were hard to dislodge". This was not always appreciated by the selectors, spectators and the press. This lack of appreciation may have been affected by the fact that he scored most of his centuries overseas and that he could play entertaining strokes, but chose not to do so.