John Parkin’s time with Notts was mainly spent playing Second Eleven cricket, with a couple of seasons plying his right-hand batting in the first team. But he has an indelible place in the county’s history as the chap at the non-striker’s end when Gary Sobers hit his six sixes off Malcolm Nash in August 1968.
He was asked about that day 40 years later to Notts’ own magazine Covered:
‘I went in before him because he wasn’t ready to bat,” said Parkin, who scored 15 not out in the first innings.
‘I spent the over in which he hit the six sixes just waiting, ready to run. When he came to the middle he said to me ‘let’s have a quick ten minutes’ so I knew he was going to be looking for boundaries but I was keen to get on strike.
‘It didn’t really register with me that he’d hit five consecutive sixes and so when he hit the sixth and I saw him walk down the wicket and take the applause I was quite surprised.
‘The spectators went mad but I was always a shy lad and struggled to make my presence felt and always preferred to stand back and let others take applause.’
Away from that momentous day, John Parkin – who was born 16 October 1944 in Kimberley – played 28 First-Class matches for Nottinghamshire, usually batting in the middle order. He made a top score of 53 from 349 runs at 11.25. He also played in the home quarter-final defeat to Gloucestershire in the Gillette Cup of 1968, his only List-A game, in which he contributed just 4no.
The majority of his Nottinghamshire cricket, though, was played for the Second XI, making more than 100 appearances in the Second Eleven and Minor Counties Championships. He was also very invovled with Kimberley Cricket Club for many years as a player and as leader of their youth teams.
June 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 441