Fifty years ago today a talented 21-year-old left-arm medium pace bowler walked into Wellington Oval and announced himself on the Cup Match stage in a big way.

Clarence Parfitt stunned and delighted the crowd — depending which team you supported — as he claimed an incredible 15 wickets in the 1965 match, a record that still stands today.

By the time his Cup Match career finished 16 years later in defeat in 1981 as St George’s captain, Parfitt was permanently in the record books as the leading wicket-taker in Cup Match history. His 115 wickets will never be broken, says Cal “Bummy’ Symonds, his captain during the 1960s when Parfitt was a major threat on the concrete wickets.

“His grandfather Bernie Hodsoll got him interested in playing cricket and he played for the St George’s league team,” Symonds said. “That year he had a great season and was selected to go to Cup Match and boy was he devastating.

“First of all he said he couldn’t play in boots, that he wasn’t comfortable, so he wore a pair of sneakers. Later I encouraged him to wear boots.”

Parfitt claimed eight for 38 and seven for 20, the 15 wickets surpassing Alec “Cocky” Steede’s 13 wickets in 1922, although Steede’s eight for 17 that year still remains the best figures in a single innings for a colt.

“I had no doubts he was ready that year, I always liked to play youngsters because some of the other players were getting on and we needed new players,” Symonds said. “The only left-arm medium pace bowler we had around that time was Kenny Paul while Fred “Dickty” Trott was a left-arm spinner.

“Parfitt, Kenny Paul and [Alfred] “Fleas” Hall and Lee Raynor were the main bowlers during that time.”

In the best nine bowling performances in an innings in Cup Match, Parfitt is featured five times, including three of the top four places, with George O’Brien’s eight for 76 now occupying fifth place. No present player comes close to Parfitt’s numbers and it will stay that way for a long time, according to Symonds.

“I remember every Cup Match he was getting at least six wickets a game,” said Symonds, now 83.

“One Cup Match he had a hard time getting a wicket at St George’s and Somerset were none for 40, so I took him off the ball for a couple of overs and then brought him on at the Western End and he just went through Somerset, ending up with seven wickets.

“He was a key weapon for St George’s, I told him ‘you’re in the side to bowl’, I don’t want you to make any runs for me’.

Symonds retired from Cup Match in 1969, going unbeaten in his nine years as captain, with eight victories, including four “two-to-one” victories. In 1965 the match ended so early because of Parfitt that the Governor, still had not arrived at the ground so they played an exhibition match to kill time.

According to the newspaper article the match was over by 12.15pm on the second day after Somerset scored 72 in the second innings to lose by an innings and 32 runs.

It was the same again in 1966 when Parfitt claimed eight wickets in the match as Somerset failed to reach 100 in either innings on their way to a crushing ten-wicket defeat. The two clubs agreed to end the first day’s play an hour before the scheduled close to ensure the match continued into the second day. Still, it was an early victory for the East Enders.

“Oliver Caisey [a club official] came out and the club wanted us to stop the game but “Bummy” didn’t want to, he wanted to end the game in case it rained the next day,” Parfitt said in a 2011 article in The Royal Gazette. “There was so much at stake for revenue and with people making plans.”

This year people are looking nervously at the weather, wondering if there will be two days of cricket. Back then it was one man virtually dictating the outcome.

“The boy should have been out of here when he was 23-years-old, he was supposed to go to Middlesex but didn’t go,” Symonds said.

Parfitt left Bermuda in 1977 to live in Scotland at the age of 33 and first represented the country at the age of 46 against Middlesex at Lord’s in 1990. His last match on local soil was his 1995 testimonial match at another Lord’s, the one in St David’s.

“He was dangerous coming around the wicket and they couldn’t read him,” Parfitt said. “He should have been back here long ago coaching our young boys.”

Wendell Smith, who has been submitting Cup Match Legends articles to The Royal Gazette the last few years, was just a 16-year-old playing his first Cup Match in 1976 when Parfitt set another record by taking nine for 47 at St George’s. It remains the best bowling in a Cup Match innings.

In the second innings he claimed four for 44 to become the second bowler behind Alec Steede to take 100 wickets in Cup Match.

“I used to field in the slips and he did two things that were amazing; he turned the ball sharply away from the right-handers and then he had this arm ball that he bowled from wider that came back in and was quicker,” Smith said.

“It swung in with his arm rather than going away. Without a doubt he was the best bowler I’ve ever seen in Bermuda, he would have played in any Test team, that’s how good he was.

“Once I was training with him at Wellington Oval and was batting and he said ‘you’re falling over’ when playing forward. He said ‘I’ll show you what I mean’ and he went and bowled one delivery, a yorker on my toes which hit my leg stump. Then he said ‘see what I mean, your head was leaning over too much and you would have trouble if somebody bowls you on your toes’.

“After that I had to listen to him on everything he said!”