From then on, he played regularly as a medium-paced left-hand bowler,[2] but despite several excellent performances, he was always overshadowed by George Dennett until World War I put a halt to county cricket.

[3] By 1914, Parker had not taken 100 wickets in a season and in his last two years was very expensive, suggesting that his was to be an insignificant career.

Though helped by appalling batting sides for much of his success, Parker took 125 wickets in 1920,[6] 164 in 1921,[7] 206 in 1922,[8] 204 in 1924,[9] and headed the first-class averages with 222 in 1925.

From 1929 to 1931 he formed, with Tom Goddard, the most lethal bowling combination in county cricket, aided by the brilliant close fielding of Wally Hammond.

He hit the stumps five times in consecutive balls in his benefit match for Gloucestershire against Yorkshire at the County Cricket Ground, Bristol in 1922, but the second was called a no-ball.

[12] In 1931, though already forty-eight — an age at which most cricketers even in that era had already retired — Parker equalled Jack Hearne's record of taking 100 wickets by 12 June and his aggregate of 219 victims was the second highest of his career.

In fact, he played only one Test, at Old Trafford in 1921, where he took 2 for 32 on a wicket too slow to be difficult — though he was discarded at the last minute in 1926 and 1930.