Anthony Edwards at his best was a fast bowler with few peers in this country. He came from obscurity to play for Devonshire Recreation Club in the late Seventies and soon became a folk hero with his own band of followers at the western end of the ground.

“Pacer”, as he would go on to be known, soon became good enough to not only break into what was already a very good Devonshire Rec team, but also to star for Somerset Cricket Club in Cup Match and then graduate to senior international cricket with Bermuda.

He was fast, penetrative and also fancied himself as a dashing batsman, although, like most tailenders, running between the wickets was not a speciality that he would be most proud of.

Anthony Streadwick Edwards, 51, died yesterday of cardiac arrest, having spent much of the past fortnight clinging to life in King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in the wake of an horrific crash on South Road, Warwick. He leaves behind a brother, Troy, and a daughter, Michellae, from his marriage to the former Antoinette Hayward.

Edwards came to Bermuda at the age of 9 from Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to the Happy Valley Road area, where the tennis ball cricket bug set in. Natural progression meant that Devonshire Rec, as the leading team in the extended neighbourhood, would always be in his future when he graduated to the hard ball. And once Gladstone Brown, the captain, and senior players such as Winston Trott and Lionel Thomas saw that the skinny kid who was being talked about in high school circles had something about him, the rest was history.

With Trott leading the line, the teenaged Edwards was allowed to ease his way into senior cricket and he perhaps did not enter into public consciousness for the first time until he was a member of the Bermuda Under-19 team that won the International Youth Tournament in 1979. The 16-year-old was one of the “youngsters” in the travelling party but he had for company two Devonshire Rec team-mates in Paul Pearce (Perinchief), who also originated from Jamaica, and Donald Norford.

He played in two matches, against the Netherlands and England South, taking two wickets for 32 runs as a back-up fast bowler to Anthony Bailey and the late Kevin Ratteray.

Having had a taste of success, he wanted more and Devonshire Rec became his launch pad into stardom. This was not necessarily an easy task because this was a team that included some of the finest and most seasoned cricketers of the day, but they had enough youth around for Edwards to feel comfortable in his own skin.

Edwards returned from Canada to finish second in the club averages with 18 wickets at 13.00, but 1980 would prove to be his breakthrough year in senior cricket, as he had usurped the indefatigable Erskine Smith as the No 2 strike bowler and made the western end his own. The result was 33 wickets at 11.42, top of the club averages and fifth in what was then the Somers Isle Cricket League.

Two years later, Somerset would come calling and he began his Cup Match career in the most sensational fashion under John Tucker. Despite stellar performances from Noel Gibbons in each innings for St George’s, Somerset romped to a six-wicket victory, with 18-year-old colt Edwards claiming match figures of eight for 76, including five for 39 as first-change bowler in the pivotal second innings.

As with Devonshire Rec, Edwards became a staple of the Somerset team until bowing out after the 1991 match with a career haul of 29 wickets at an impressive average of 17.41.

Cup Match being the peculiar beast that it is, it was always easier to get into a Bermuda team than it was to play in the midsummer classic and so Edwards hung around in the international area for an additional three years. Anxious to prove that he was not past his sell-by date as a fast bowler, the now 31-year-old continued a remarkable alliance with Terry Burgess, the Hamilton Parish and Bailey’s Bay quick.

While Bermuda may have featured strike forces to rival this pair in yesteryear, it is with confidence that we can say that there has been nothing since with the new ball to rival these two when in full flight.

The 1994 ICC Trophy was the tournament and Nairobi, Kenya, the destination, and balls could be heard popping into wicketkeeper Dean Minors’s gloves with such a resounding thud that you knew these fellas meant business — Pacer from one end and room-mate Terry from the other.

It was only when the pair, both into their thirties, ran out of steam at the end of a long five weeks carrying the attack in sweltering East Africa that the wheels came out from under Bermuda’s challenge to reach a first World Cup.

They had given all they could give and never played for Bermuda again.

Burgess left us in 2005, having lost his fight with cancer, and Kevin Ratteray, cruelly cut down in his youth, has been gone for more than two decades.

Now Pacer. That is some strike force up there. Rest in peace.