Perks Reg Image 1 Worcestershire 1936

Description

Hereford born right-arm fast-medium bowler Reg Perks was a tall man who made full use of his height, swinging the ball both ways, and was very steady, a great trier, endlessly cheerful and quite tireless. A left-handed bat, he started poorly but made himself into a useful tail end hitter.

Perks was first involved with Worcestershire as early as 1928, when he joined their ground staff at 16 years old. He first appeared for Worcestershire in 1930 and his first victim was Jack Hobbs, with 7-20 against Leicestershire on a rain-affected wicket his outstanding performance for the season. By 1931 he had made a sufficient reputation to be picked for The Players against The Gentlemen at Lord’s, aged only 19. It was several years before he improved upon this, but by 1935 he was clearly one of the hardest-working of several emerging pace bowlers with 119 wickets for less than 22 each and an annual output of around a thousand overs per season. The following three years saw Perks maintain his form. he took 15-106 against Essex at Worcester in 1937, the best match figures of his career.

Perks was chosen for the M.C.C. tour of South Africa in 1938-1939. He made his England debut in only the last match, the famous ‘Timeless Test’ at Durban in March 1939, taking 5-100 on the most docile of wickets in the first innings. Perks went on to have his best season ever in the summer of 1939, with 159 wickets for less than 20 runs each, including thirteen hauls of five or more wickets in an innings in the County Championship. He again played in one more Test for England against The West Indies at The Oval in August 1939 but further progress was thwarted by the outbreak of the Second World War.

Perks twice performed the hat-trick, against Kent at Stourbridge in 1931, and against Warwickshire at Edgbaston in 1933, and twice he took nine wickets in an innings – against Glamorgan at Stourbridge, 1939 and against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham, 1946.

Perks was 34 when cricket resumed in 1946 and though he never came back into representative calculations, he maintained a surprising consistency for the rest of his career: his first class averages between 1946 and 1955 were all within the very narrow range from 23.28 in 1946 to 26.16 in 1951. Perks’ tireless fast-medium bowling was considered an important part of Worcestershire’s rise to third in the County Championship in 1949 and fourth in 1951.

In his last season, 1955, Perks became the first professional captain of Worcestershire, taking 5-79 against Hampshire in his last match, in so doing raising his aggregate to 100 wickets for the sixteenth consecutive season. This feat is bettered only by Derek Shackleton and Tich Freeman. When he retired, Perks had played more than 500 matches for Worcestershire. He was the only man to take two thousand wickets for the County: his final total of 2,143 Worcestershire wickets (out of 2,233 victims in all first class cricket) easily a County record, being more than 500 victims clear of second-placed Norman Gifford. Later he was a valuable and outspoken member of the Worcestershire Committee.

With the ball he recorded a best return of 9-40 and his 2,233 wickets came at a cost a shade over 24 apiece, with Perks taking ten wickets in a match 24 times and recording 143 five wicket hauls. With the bat he made 14 half centuries with a highest score of 75, at an average of 12.20. He also took 238 catches in first class play.

His father Thomas Perks had one first class game for Marylebone Cricket Club (M.C.C.) in 1902.

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