Jim Parks, a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1968, died on May 31, 2022, aged 90. Between 1954 and 1968, Parks had 1,962 runs and 114 dismissals from 46 Test matches, and was remembered in the 2023 Wisden Almanack.

PARKS, JAMES MICHAEL, died on May 31, aged 90. The actor Michael Simkins best captured the essence of Jim Parks: “Crinkly-haired, sun-tanned, his face permanently creased into a broad smile, he seemed the embodiment of Sussex.” For more than two decades, Parks was as much a part of Hove as deckchairs and sea frets, hitting 29,138 runs and claiming 798 wicketkeeping victims (and 137 other catches in the field) in 563 first-class appearances. Yet, more than statistics, his game was about gloriously uninhibited batting, naturally athletic glovework, and a love of cricket. “You could pick out his style from a mile away,” said Ted Dexter.

Parks’s fame spread well beyond the South Coast. Between 1960 and 1967/68, he was one of England’s regular keepers, making 45 of his 46 Test appearances while vying for the gloves with John Murray. And he gave a glimpse of the future: if the stylish Murray was the purists’ choice, Parks’s batting often earned him the nod. He helped define the role of the modern wicketkeeper-batsman. But he did not start that way, forging his reputation as an ebullient batsman, sometimes compared to Denis Compton, and an outstanding cover fielder. Then, in 1958, he reluctantly made the switch, at the insistence of Sussex captain Robin Marlar: within two years, he was England’s first-choice keeper.

Born in Haywards Heath, Parks had an impeccable Sussex lineage. His father, also Jim, played for the county from 1924 to 1939, winning a Test cap in 1937; his uncle Harry was a regular from 1926 until 1948. From his father’s debut until 1972, there was at least one Parks on the playing staff. As soon as he could hold a bat, Jim junior was immersed in the game. His father erected a net in the garden, and would bowl at him each morning. He was taken to his first match in 1937, seeing his father presented with a silver tankard for the unique double of 3,000 runs and 100 wickets that summer. At Hove Grammar School, Parks excelled at cricket and football. After doing well in a trial, he was selected for tours by Young Amateurs of Sussex, coming up against Fred Trueman, Brian Close and Colin Cowdrey. A stellar performance against Gloucestershire – 150 runs in the match, and nine wickets with his leg-spin – earned an invitation to join the county staff in 1949. Still only 17, he played two matches that summer; on debut against Cambridge University, he took the wicket of the future high court judge Oliver Popplewell.

In 1950, at No.7 against Kent at Gillingham, he hit an unbeaten 159. Arriving at 116-5, and with the England leg-spinner Doug Wright in full cry, he showed a cool head. “His stubborn defensive play brought ironical cheers and clapping from the crowd,” reported the Daily Herald. “But young Jim didn’t turn a hair.” Two years’ national service in the RAF followed but, on a rare appearance in the Championship, Parks hit Kent again, this time with 188 at Tunbridge Wells. He was capped next day.

He passed 1,000 runs in his first full season, 1953, as Sussex rose from 13th to second under the inspirational captaincy of David Sheppard, and topped 2,000 in 1955. In between, Parks had been given an unexpected Test opportunity, against Pakistan at Old Trafford. Selected as twelfth man for his fielding prowess, he was promoted when Frank Lowson was injured. Though making 15 in his only innings, he stayed on the radar, and in 1955/56 toured Pakistan with an MCC A squad. He averaged 13, but was included on England’s tour of South Africa in 1956/57. The trip became a nightmare. Parks was hit on the head during fielding practice, suffered double vision, and flew home for treatment. Then, about to fly back, he fell ill with pneumonia.

He remained one of the most attractive batsmen in county cricket, despite a nagging suspicion he was not fulfilling his potential. “Though he was never dull, his cricket lacked consistency,” wrote Richard Streeton in Wisden. His conversion to wicketkeeping proved a turning point. On the first morning against Essex at Brentwood in June 1958, Marlar axed Rupert Webb, who was already padded up, and gave the job to Parks, who had to borrow a pair of gloves from Brian Taylor, his opposite number. Parks soon became the regular keeper, but found the transition hard: “It did not take me long to realise I didn’t possess the necessary concentration, while the physical demands were far greater than I ever imagined. My colleagues had to carry me back to the pavilion. I’ve never felt so stiff.”

In 1959, he hit 2,313 runs at 51 with six hundreds, and claimed 93 dismissals; his 86 catches were a record for an English summer. Marlar was delighted: “Soon, I feel sure, Jim Parks will come to realise what a giant he has become as a cricketer, and with this realisation he will be able to make the field bow to his will when he is in full flow. When that time arrives, he will deserve to be ranked with the all-time greats, along with the Sheppards, Mays and Cowdreys of this world.”

He was not chosen for the tour of the West Indies, but was coaching in Trinidad when England suffered an injury crisis, and summoned to Guyana before the Fourth Test, where he was twelfth man. But in a tour match in Berbice, he hit 183 to secure his place for the Fifth, at Port-of-Spain, replacing Roy Swetman. It was tough on Swetman’s deputy, Keith Andrew, who generously helped Parks prepare. “He was a better keeper than everybody thought,” Andrew told his biographer, Stephen Chalke. “He wasn’t a wicketkeeper as such – he wasn’t good standing up – but he had a good pair of hands. And with the team they had, only off-spinners and no turning wickets, they were right to play him.”

Clyde Walcott was Parks’s first Test victim, stumped off David Allen. In the second innings, England were struggling at 148-6, when Parks made an unbeaten 101. In The Daily Telegraph, EW Swanton praised “a succession of handsome strokes, including one off the back foot off Watson past cover that fairly took the breath away”. He put on 197 with MJK Smith – England’s seventh-wicket record until Jonny Bairstow and Jamie Overton broke it in 2022 – to ensure a draw, preserving a 1–0 lead that secured a first series win in the Caribbean.

He kept his place against South Africa in 1960, but was replaced by Murray the following summer, and did not play again until 1963. This time he stayed put. At Durban in December 1964, he hit his second Test hundred, and enjoyed the bouncier wickets in Australia in 1965/66, averaging 48, though a missed stumping of Peter Burge proved costly in the Second Test at Melbourne.

Parks’s Test career ended in the West Indies in 1967/68, but he was not finished. He had taken over the Sussex captaincy in 1967, with instructions to bring attacking cricket back to Hove. In his first year, they had the fastest run-rate and the second-fastest over-rate in the Championship; he was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year, 30 years after his father. And he remained a thrilling batsman. “He was inventive, great to watch, and great to bat with,” said team-mate Peter Graves. “I shared a partnership with him against Lancashire, when he made a hundred and I made about 60, and I just stood at the other end in awe.” That talent was key to Sussex’s success in the early years of one-day cricket. In the first Gillette Cup final in 1963, when they beat Worcestershire, Parks alone passed 50, and hit the only six of the match. “Only Parks’s handsome driving gave impetus to the innings,” wrote John Woodcock in The Times.

He gave up the captaincy in July 1968, feeling it was affecting his health as well as his form, and in 1972 left Sussex for Somerset after a dispute about relinquishing the gloves. He signed off in June 1976 at Bath, 27 years after his debut. By then he was working for the brewers Whitbread, and for some years organised their sponsorship of the Old England XI. He was still turning out as his 70th birthday approached. “It’s only half-measures for wicketkeeping,” he said. “I can crouch down, but I’m not sure I’ll get up again.”

Parks returned to Hove as commercial manager, and was club president when Sussex won their first County Championship in 2003. He was England’s oldest surviving player before his death, and left a trove of memories of glorious batting on sun-filled seaside afternoons. Graves, a junior member before he joined the playing staff, recalled: “I preferred watching him to Dexter. Ted had the power, but if you wanted to watch an artist, choose Jim.”

Parks, James Michael, died on May 31, 2022, aged 90.