Herbert Alan Peach was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er who played for Surrey. He was an all-rounder

All-rounder

An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a few batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are considered specialists...

: a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler.

Alan Peach was born at Maidstone

Maidstone

Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...

, Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

. World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 delayed his first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 debut until 1919, when he was already 28, but in a career that extended until 1931 he still managed to take 795 wickets at 26.58 and score 8940 runs at 23.71. The highest of his four hundreds was 200 not out, made against Northamptonshire at Northampton in 1920, when he shared in a stand of 171 in forty-two minutes with Percy Fender

Percy Fender

Percy George Herbert Fender was an English all-round cricketer who played 13 Tests for England. He was a middle order batsman and bowled mainly leg spin.-Biography:...

. A notably hard striker of the ball, in 1924 he hit balls from both Bates of Glamorgan and Newman

Jack Newman (English cricketer)

John Alfred 'Jack' Newman was an English cricketer who played for Hampshire...

 of Hampshire clean out of The Oval

The Oval

The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...

. During the same season, he dismissed four Sussex batsmen with consecutive balls, also at The Oval, finishing with eight wickets for 60, his best innings analysis.

He played six times for the Players against the Gentlemen

Gentlemen v Players

The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...

 between 1923 and 1928.

He was Surrey coach from 1935 to 1939 and discovered Alec

Alec Bedser

Sir Alec Victor Bedser, CBE was a professional English cricketer. He was the chairman of selectors for the English national cricket team, and the president of Surrey County Cricket Club...

 and Eric Bedser

Eric Bedser

Eric Arthur Bedser was a cricket player for Surrey County Cricket Club. He was the elder identical twin brother of Sir Alec , widely regarded as one of England's top bowlers of the 20th century...

. He died at North End, Newbury

Newbury, Berkshire

Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...

, Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

.