Famous Cricketers No 95 - P.A.Perrin

497. Essex v Northamptonshire, Leyton, August (23), 25, 26 (Match drawn) [6] b W.Wells 1 328-6 351 498. Essex v Leicestershire, Aylestone Road, Leicester, August (30), September 1, 2 (Leicestershire won by 94 runs) [5] c G.H.S.Fowke b G.Geary 9 68 125 [6] c G.H.S.Fowke b A.Skelding 0 138 175 SEASON’S AVERAGES Batting and Fielding M I NO Runs HS Ave 100 50 Ct County Championship 24 37 2 647 88 18.48 - 4 10 Other Essex match 1 2 0 41 23 20.50 - - 1 Season 25 39 2 688 88 18.59 - 4 11 Career 498 858 82 28285 343* 36.44 65 143 276 1925 In a dry season, Essex enjoyed what Wisden termed ‘a welcome revival’, which relieved the club’s financial problems of the previous winter. They finished seventh in the Championship, due in part to their middle-aged middle-order of Freeman (aged 42), Russell (37), Perrin (49) and Douglas (43). Perrin played in nineteen matches, appearing regularly from the Whitsun Bank Holiday through to the August Bank Holiday, when he dropped out, allowing F.W.Gilligan to be brought in to take over as wicketkeeper from Freeman. Perrin reached a thousand runs for the eighteenth season. His average of 37.88, without relying unduly on ‘not outs’, put him at around twenty-fifth in the national batting averages. Wisden described him as ‘wonderfully fit’, but added that his slowness in running prevented him from obtaining full value for his powerful hits. The Cricketer thought he played with ‘all his old grace and ease as a class batsman.’ He converted only one of his eight innings of fifty into a century, a low ratio by his standards: this seems to confirm his slowness. Similarly, he was involved in five century partnerships and in all he was very much the lesser partner numerically. His sixty-sixth, and last first-class century, off Northamptonshire at Kettering, involved ‘hard, clean off-driving’ and took 180 minutes: he has remained the oldest batsman to score a century for Essex. In the first ever first-class match at Chelmsford, in June, he contributed 85 out of 200 for the fifth wicket with J.R.Freeman against Oxford University, setting a new county record for that wicket. At Gloucester he twice fell to C.W.L.Parker, who took seventeen wickets in the match. On his forty-ninth birthday, Perrin was involved in the odd affair on the last day of the Surrey match at Leyton, when the coach bringing most of the Surrey side, who were fielding, was delayed by traffic congestion nearby in Stratford. At the starting time, Fender and Jeacocke, the only Surrey players present, bowled token overs to C.J.H.Treglown and R.H.Sharp, the Essex batsmen who were not out overnight, until the rest of the Surrey side turned up. Richard Streeton, in his biography of Fender, said that Perrin persuaded the press not to report the breach of the Championship regulations, although some newspapers implied that the proceedings were unusual. Perrin, playing in his five hundredth first-class match, was now a man of some authority, it would seem. Own Team O M R W Opp Ct Total Total 499. Essex v Gloucestershire, Leyton, May 20, 21, 22 (Essex won by five wickets) [5] c M.G.Salter b C.W.L.Parker 38 222 177 [6] b C.W.L.Parker 17 250-5 291 500. Essex v Surrey, Leyton, May 23, 25, 26 (Match drawn) [5] c H.Strudwick b T.F.Shepherd 40 356 431-8d 314-8 1 65