History of Bucks CCC

behind the divisional winners, Oxfordshire. The teamwent into the final match against Wiltshire at Amersham needing one point to ensure qualification for the NatWest, but looking for a win to take the divisional title. Wiltshire won the toss and may have regretted their decision to ask Bucks to bat. Malcolm Roberts, who had already enjoyed a magnificent season, took the opportunity to post a record fourth century, going on to reach 193 not out and taking David Johns’ record for the highest score by a Bucks batsman. Sadly for Bucks, the Wiltshire batsmen also enjoyed the free-scoring conditions, posting 310 in reply to the home side’s 337 for 5. Bucks then hit 153 for 5 in 16 overs, but could not tempt the visitors into a run chase. Malcolm Roberts’ career stretched on to 1997, by which time he had amassed 5,989 runs at an average of 45.37 and hit 15 centuries in the Championship, a figure that discounts his hundred in the one-day final. Second to Roberts is David Johns with eight centuries. What made Roberts such a prolific run scorer? Contemporaries stress his hunger for runs. Though he was a team player, it was scoring runs that made him happy. Few will have played more games with him than Tim Scriven, who saw Roberts’ great strength as the ability to play off either front or back foot. “He played quick bowling fantastically well. If someone dropped it short he’d pull it for four. If it was pitched up he’d drive you for four. He had a lot of time and lots of options where to hit the ball.” Paul Atkins also points out that Roberts was lucky to play as much cricket as he did, so he always had his eye in: “I shared a house with him. He possibly played more cricket than I did, and I was on the staff at Surrey!” Roberts apart, there were useful runs from Burrow, Black and Harwood, while Richard Hayward played his last two matches for the county and scored a century in each of them. There was also an outstanding season for Steve Lynch of Beaconsfield, who was second in both the batting and bowling averages. He was already a mature cricketer when he had made his first appearance in 1984, and he would make his last as late as 2001, by which time he had taken on the role of team manager and still took the field in moments of emergency, playing on one occasion alongside his own son, as Neil Hames once did. His highest score for Bucks, 91 against Wales MC, was followed shortly after by his best bowling analysis, six for 28, when his left-arm spinners proved the undoing of Cornwall and earned Lynch his county cap. A shadow cast across the season was the sudden death of Horace Perrin at the age of 66. He died following a meeting shortly after he had accompanied the team on their tour of Devon and Cornwall. An assistant secretary of the National Union of Teachers, he was approaching retirement, having for 25 years devoted his holidays to the service of Bucks cricket. Few have given so much to the county over such a prolonged period. Restrictions on the M25 players 97 Horace Perrin Malcolm Roberts