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Peter Lever: he took 41 wickets for England and nearly 800 for Lancashire - Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Peter Lever, who has died aged 84, was a medium-fast bowler who won the Ashes with England, for whom he took 41 wickets in 17 Tests; he played in the very first one-day international, and won the Gillette Cup with Lancashire, for whom he took nearly 800 first-class wickets.
Peter Lever was born in Todmorden, on the Yorkshire side of the county boundary with Lancashire, on September 17 1940 (“technically I’m a Yorkshireman, but I don’t brag about it,” he once said). He appeared 13 months after his brother Colin, who went on to play Minor Counties cricket. The boys’ first experience of the game – a somewhat reluctant one – came via an unwanted Christmas present when Peter was six years old.
“There was a foot of snow outside,” he recalled. “We thought the big present was going to be a sledge or something like that, but it was a pair of cricket boots each and a membership to Todmorden Cricket Club. We didn’t even know what cricket was then. We said: ‘Can’t we swap these for something else?’ My mother said: ‘I’m not having you on the street corners, messing around with these lads from the estate. You’ll go to the cricket club.’ And that was that.”
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The Australia batsman Terry Jenner ducks to avoid a Lever bouncer in Sydney in 1971 - John Patrick O'Gready/Fairfax Media via Getty Images
At Todmorden CC he started out keeping wicket, until one day during practice there were no fast bowlers in the nets. The club captain turned to Lever and said: “You look as if you’re big enough. Do you think you can bowl?” Lever said: “I’ve no idea, I’ll have a go.” From then on his course was set, and
He made his Lancashire debut in 1960, and soon established himself as one of the frontline bowlers. In 1965 he displayed a degree of principle often lacking in cricket when the South Africans were due to play Lancashire. Lever refused to turn out, in protest at apartheid.
At that time England were well off for pacemen, and Lever had to wait to make his England debut until the fifth Test of the 1970 series against the Rest of the World, taking seven wickets for 83 runs, though the series was later stripped of Test status.
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Bowling for the Duke of Norfolk’s XI against Australia at Arundel in April 1972: his team won by 28 runs - Bill Smith/Popperfoto via Getty Images
But he was soon back in international action, playing five of seven Tests during the 1970-71 Ashes series Down Under, taking 13 wickets as England won 2-0 to reclaim the urn. When the third Test, in Melbourne, was washed out, Lever played in the hastily arranged inaugural one-day international.
Lever’s bowling could be ferocious but he was a gentle man, and he had a horrific experience on a two-Test trip to New Zealand in 1975 following an Ashes rout at the hands of Australia.
In the first Test, in Auckland, the hosts, following on, had slumped to 181 for nine on the final day and were doomed to defeat. Ewen Chatfield, a bowler making his Test debut, was not expected to last long at the crease, but in tandem with Geoff Howarth he was proving difficult to dislodge.
He had given up one chance, when he gloved the ball for a missed catch at short leg. Lever sent down a bouncer hoping for a repeat, but as Chatfield turned his head the ball hit his glove and smashed into his left temple.
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New Zealand’s Ewen Chatfield goes down after being hit by a bouncer from Lever in Auckland in 1972: the Kiwi suffered a fractured skull - PA/Alamy
“God, I bowled the ball too straight and he couldn’t get out of the way,” Lever told reporters afterwards.
The players looked on as Chatfield lay on the ground twitching and groaning. As play had not been expected to last long on the final morning there was no doctor in the ground – in fact it transpired that the New Zealand team doctor was away on holiday – and the England physio Bernard Thomas sprinted from the stands with a local ambulanceman.
Chatfield’s heart had stopped, and Thomas gave him mouth-to-mouth and CPR. As more paramedics arrived to revive the bowler, Lever fell to his knees, crying. “I honestly thought I had killed him,” he said later. “I felt sick and ashamed at what I had done and all I could think when I got back to the pavilion was that I wanted to retire.”
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Lever, left, appeals to the umpire as Gloucestershire’s Alastair Hignell goes for a run in the Gillette Cup semi-final at Old Trafford in 1975: the umpire gave Hignell out LBW for a duck - PA/Alamy
The Kiwi had suffered a fractured skull, but when Lever visited him in hospital later that day, he reassured the Englishman that it had been his own fault. “I should have been able to get out of the way,” he said.
The incident sparked an anguished debate about bouncers, particularly those bowled to tail-enders. Denis Howell, the UK’s Minister of Sport, suggested including short-pitched bowling in Health and Safety legislation.
Ewen Chatfield made a full recovery, though he had to wait two years for his next Test cap, but the incident haunted Lever for the rest of his life – and later, during a Lancashire v Derbyshire match at a snowy Buxton, he refused to bowl as he felt the surface was too dangerous.
He retired from the first-class game in 1976, staying on in List A (one-day) cricket until 1983 (he had also had a brief spell wintering with Tasmania in the early 1970s). His 41 Test wickets had come at an average of 36.80, with best figures of six for 38, while with Lancashire he won the one-day Gillette Cup in 1970 and 1971 and took 796 first-class wickets at an average of 25.59.
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In action for Lancashire against Northants in the John Player League at Bletchley in 1976: the non-striking batsman is David Steele - John Holmes/Alamy
He went on to coach Lancashire and England bowlers, and in later years he helped out with the coaching at Lewdon CC in Devon, to where he had retired.
He was a keen gardener, and took to planting wild flowers around his village, Bratton Covelly – mainly poppies, which led to the landlord of his local pub putting up a sign saying: “If anyone wants any opium, see Peter Lever.”
He suffered some financial hardship in retirement when he discovered that his Lancashire CCC pension had disappeared; when he sought redress he was told by the Ombudsman that his claim was out of time.
Peter Lever is survived by his wife Ros and their children.
Peter Lever, born September 17 1940, death announced March 27 2025
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