Peter Willey
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| Peter Willey | ||||
 |
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 England |
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| Personal information | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batting style | Right-hand bat | |||
| Bowling style | Right-arm offbreak | |||
| Career statistics | ||||
| Tests | ODIs | |||
| Matches | 26 | 26 | ||
| Runs scored | 1184 | 538 | ||
| Batting average | 26.90 | 23.39 | ||
| 100s/50s | 2/5 | -/5 | ||
| Top score | 102* | 64 | ||
| Balls bowled | 1091 | 1031 | ||
| Wickets | 7 | 13 | ||
| Bowling average | 65.14 | 50.69 | ||
| 5 wickets in innings | - | - | ||
| 10 wickets in match | - | n/a | ||
| Best bowling | 2/73 | 3/33 | ||
| Catches/stumpings | 3/- | 4/- | ||
Peter Willey (born December 6, 1949 in Sedgefield, Co Durham) is a former English cricketer, who played as a right-handed batsman and right-arm offbreak bowler. After his playing career ended, he became a Test umpire. Although widely respected, he tired of the constant travelling, and decided to leave the international panel to spend more time with his family.
[edit] The Open Stance
As his career developed, Willey became a leading exponent of the "open stance" of batting, where the batsman looked squarely at the bowler, rather than side-on, looking over his own shoulder. Advocates of the traditional M.C.C. Coaching manual style derided the stance for its ugliness, and found technical reasons why its exponents were doomed to fail, but Willey persisted with the method, and, by the time he played his shot, was a perfectly orthodox batsman. Thanks to his renowned mental and physical toughness - he was the only man capable of beating Ian Botham in a dressing room arm wrestle - he was constantly picked against the fearsome West Indian attack, only to be dropped again for games against more gentle opposition. He scored two hundreds against the West Indies, although his overall Test batting average ended at under 27.
[edit] Willey and humour
According to an urban myth, during a Test match between the West Indies and England when Michael Holding was to bowl to Willey, the commentator at the time, Brian Johnston, described the action as "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey". However, Wisden states that there is no record of Johnston or anyone else actually saying this.[2].
In 1979, Willey caught Dennis Lillee off the bowling of Graham Dilley, resulting in a scorecard of: "Lillee - c. Willey, b. Dilley".
[edit] External links
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