A fast bowler, he was qualified for South Africa through having been born in Cape Town, but he played almost all of his cricket in England in the Bradford League.
However, with bowlers possessing a high reputation on matting, like Blanckenberg and Nupen, failing completely on English turf wickets, Parker was called in to reinforce the side for the match against Oxford University.
[2] Although play lasted only five hours due to rain, Parker took four wickets for 34 on a pitch too soft to suit him and was promptly given a place in the First Test at Edgbaston.
[3] In that match, which ended disastrously after Arthur Gilligan and Maurice Tate produced one of the finest bowling performances in Test history to bowl South Africa out for a mere 30 runs in their first innings, Parker was by far the best of the South African bowlers, taking six of the ten wickets that fell for 152 runs.
In his latter years Parker's research in breeding sheep for better wool led him to move to Australia, where he died in Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains in 1969.