Arnold Peter ARNOLD 1926-2021

	Player number 243 (f-c debut for Northamptonshire – 16 June 1951)
Birthplace	Wellington, New Zealand
	County Cap 1955; Cricket Chairman 1978-93; President 1996-2000
First-Class	167 matches, 7,420 runs @ 26.40; 3 wickets @26.33; 73 catches

When Peter Arnold embarked on the long sea voyage from his native New Zealand to England in 1950, at his own expense, he was backing himself to carve out a career in professional cricket at Wantage Road with no guarantee of success. Half-a-century later, in 2000, ‘Kiwi’ completed a four-year term as Northamptonshire’s president, and even into his nineties retained a passionate and unashamedly emotional commitment to the club. Recommended by Frank O’Brien from Christchurch, a County player before the Second World War, Arnold impressed at pre-season trials in April 1950 – even Freddie Brown had a bowl at him in the nets – and was taken on the staff. He made an early mark with 68, batting down the order at number seven, on Championship debut against Lancashire (with a young Brian Statham on song) at Old Trafford in 1951. Promoted to open the innings with Dennis Brookes in 1954 following ‘Buddy’ Oldfield’s retirement, he filled that role for the best part of six seasons, scoring nearly 1,600 runs with three centuries in 1955 and also topping 1,000 runs in 1956 and 1958. His admiration for, and friendship with, Brookes remained undimmed decades later. Arnold retired as a player in 1960 to concentrate on business commitments but replaced Keith Andrew on Northamptonshire’s selection committee in 1976, and then from 1978 to 1995 – a period which saw seismic changes in the game – he chaired its replacement, the Cricket Committee. In that capacity he acted as manager on the club’s first- ever pre-season trip overseas, to Durban in 1992. He also sat on the registration and discipline committees of ECB, and was the club’s oldest first-class player at the time of his death in 2021, aged 94.