Peach Harry Image 1 Surrey 1921

Maidstone, Kent born all-rounder Herbert “Harry” (sometimes known as Alan) Peach was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler who served for a short time on the Kent staff before joining The Oval staff in 1912. He played for Surrey 11 in the two seasons preceding the First World War. He made his first class debut for Surrey in 1919, and soon proved himself a joyous cricketer, his many hard-hitting innings giving much pleasure at The Oval throughout the 1920s. He hit with tremendous power, and on numerous occasions was the leading partner in lightning bursts of scoring, often in conjunction with Percy Fender.

In 1924 he hit balls from both Bates of Glamorgan and Newman of Hampshire clean out of The Oval, and at Swansea scored 50 of his 56 in boundaries. At The Oval in 1928 he scored 96 out of 129 in less than an hour against Hampshire, but his most famous innings – and the highest of his career – was at Northampton in 1920 when, at more than a run a minute, he scored 200 not out (including 26 fours) out of 492, adding 288 for the fifth wicket in a bit over 2 hours with Andy Ducat, and 171 unbroken for the sixth with Fender in only 42 minutes.

He was a naturally aggressive batsman, not cultured, but often devastatingly effective, and on one occasion at The Oval struck all six balls of an over to the boundary. He was a medium pace bowler who did a large amount of work for Surrey, mostly on perfect Oval wickets, but always with an honest cheerfulness. When he took a career best 8-60 against Sussex at The Oval in 1924, he took 4 wickets in 4 balls, the only time the feat has been performed in a Championship match at The Oval: off his next delivery a catch was dropped which prevented him from achieving a unique feat. He took 96 wickets in 1928, but never succeeded in reaching 100 in a season; and he twice – in 1920 and 1925 – scored more than 900 runs.

He played six times for The Players against The Gentlemen between 1923 and 1928, and early in 1929 visited Jamaica with Sir (then Mr.) Julien Cahn’s team. He took his benefit against Yorkshire later that year. His career for Surrey continued until 1931, at the end of the season both he and Ducat were not re-engaged.

In his 428 innings in 338 first class matches he scored 8,940 runs at an average of 23.65, including four centuries and 29 half centuries, and took 795 wickets at 26.58 each, with 30 five wicket innings and one ten wicket match. He was also an excellent fielder, taking 182 catches in his first class career. He played for Berkshire in 1933 and 1934, and was County coach at The Oval in the five years up to 1939, being responsible for discovering the Bedser twins. He was always an enthusiastic and popular figure and a fine example of a professional cricketer.