My good friend Jack Hyams, who has died aged 92, was arguably the most successful club cricketer of all time. He probably had the longest unbroken playing career, covering nine decades. At a conservative estimate, he scored more than 125,000 runs and 170 centuries. He was also a useful bowler, taking more than 1,300 wickets.

Jack was born in Hammersmith, west London. He was offered professional terms as both a footballer and cricketer, but his father forbade him from accepting, saying that he could get double the wage and give half to his mother by working in the family clothing business.

During the second world war, Jack was an aircraft gunner, protecting the North Atlantic convoys, but survived to lay the basis of his lifelong fitness as a PE instructor. A highlight of his immediate postwar sporting career was playing professional football for the Yorkshire club Bradford (Park Avenue) which defeated Arsenal in an FA Cup coup at Highbury in 1948.

In cricket, Jack scored his first century when he was 14. He went on to play for more than 50 clubs, including a spell in the Bradford League, ending his career at Cockfosters and Billericay. He played for the MCC, the Club Cricket Conference, the Stoics, the Forty Club, the Nomads, the Bushmen, Finchley, Alexandra Park, the Bertie Joel Eleven, and several times for the Cross Arrows at Lord's. The West Indies Test player Wes Hall, he said, was the fastest bowler he ever faced.

Jack played all over the world and was made life president of the Barmy Army, the England fans' organisation. He was in his 70s when he scored his last century, against Edmonton at Brondesbury, and the cricket historian David Frith described him as a "phenomenon". In his 90th year, before a stroke laid him low, Jack played 11 times for Billericay and five for his own team. He was a talkative man, proud of his achievements, and he had plenty of reasons to be immodest – one of the most enviable of men.

In 1977, after the death of his second wife, Muriel, Jack married Mabs, whom he had met during a visit to her pet shop. They shared a love of dogs. Jack is survived by Mabs and her two children, Hazel and Clive; by two children, Philip and Carole, from his first marriage, to Joan; by five grandchildren, Leanne, Melonie, David, Tracey and Claire; and by three great-grandchildren, Matilda, Violet and Darcey.

For more information please also visit the Nomads site at www.nomadscc.com/jack-hyams-club-cricket-legend/