Peter Lever obituary: From ‘the best seven-for ever taken’ to Mike Atherton’s mentor

LEVER, PETER, who died on March 27, aged 84, reached the peak of his Test career on a steamy Melbourne morning at the end of England’s traumatic 1974/75 Ashes tour. Unwanted since the first Test, and left “feeling like a leper”, he was recalled for the sixth, with England 4-0 down. He had not known he was playing until his wife read it in a morning newspaper, but he removed Rick McCosker with his fourth delivery, and pitched the ball up to take advantage of helpful conditions – though he was still hostile enough to hit Greg Chappell in the face. When Lever was rested after seven overs, he had 4-13, and finished with 11-2-38-6. In The Observer, Michael Carey called it the “best piece of English pace bowling on the tour”. Lever added three more when Australia batted again, but was unmoved by England’s innings victory: “I feel no elation. After losing the Ashes, it seems to me almost a useless performance. But I hope it taught one or two people one or two things.”

Lever made more headlines when England visited New Zealand at the end of the tour. Striving to take the final wicket and wrap up the first Test at Auckland, they met unexpected resistance from No.11 Ewen Chatfield. When Lever tested his resolve with a short ball, it deflected off Chatfield’s glove on to his temple, and he collapsed. Bernard Thomas, the England physio, gave him the kiss of life, and he regained consciousness in the ambulance on the way to hospital. “I don’t blame Peter Lever,” said Chatfield. “He is the fastest bowler I have faced.” But Lever was distraught, sinking to his knees on the outfield, and weeping. “I thought I’d killed him,” he said. “I don’t think I could have played again if he’d died.”

It had been Lever’s second Ashes tour, having secured his place in Ray Illingworth’s 1970/71 squad with 7-83 against the Rest of the World at The Oval in the final match of a series later stripped of Test status. Lever’s victims were a roll call of galacticos: Eddie Barlow, Graeme Pollock, Mushtaq Mohammad, Garry Sobers, Clive Lloyd, Mike Procter and Intikhab Alam. “Some press guy told me it was the best seven-for ever taken,” Lever recalled. He was now a certainty for selection, despite his imminent 30th birthday, and made his debut in the second Test at Perth, removing Doug Walters twice. Later, he took 3-43 in the first innings of England’s series-clinching victory in the seventh Test at the SCG. With 13 at 33, he was their third-highest wicket-taker, after John Snow and Derek Underwood.

Lever was born in Todmorden on the Yorkshire side of the border with Lancashire. When he was six, his mother gifted him and his brother Colin cricket boots and membership of the town cricket club as a Christmas present; the boys had wanted a sledge. Lever made his Lancashire League debut, alongside Colin, for Todmorden while still a pupil at the grammar school. He had been a wicketkeeper, but shed the gloves after being asked to bowl in the nets when the club were short of seamers. A good schoolboy athlete, he was also Yorkshire triple-jump champion.

He made his Lancashire debut against Cambridge University in 1960, and his first significant impact came in 1963, with 59 wickets at 30, including 6-37 against Glamorgan. “Lever emerged as a pace bowler of promise,” said Wisden. He was also handy with the bat, hitting 573 runs. In 1966, he again passed 50 wickets and 500 runs.

After the retirement of Brian Statham in 1968, and the departure of Ken Higgs a year later, Lever and Ken Shuttleworth became leaders of the Lancashire attack. “Until then we had been vying for the third-seamer place,” said Shuttleworth. “We worked well together and got on well – the only dispute was over who should have the wind.” In 1970, Lever took 76 Championship wickets, and Shuttleworth 72. Both were selected for the trip to Australia. “I remember Peter coming to me early in the tour and saying he didn’t think he was fast enough for Australian wickets,” recalled Shuttleworth, who also died in 2025. “But he really worked hard, straightened his run-up, and off about 20 yards sprinted in. He became an arm bowler, and went straight through the crease. He definitely became faster on the trip.”

Under the inspirational leadership of Jack Bond, and galvanised by overseas stars Clive Lloyd and Farokh Engineer, Lancashire had risen from 15th to third in 1970. It was the start of a golden era in one-day cricket: beginning with a Sunday League win in 1969, they bagged five trophies in four years.

The pace of Lever and Shuttleworth at the start of the innings was key to Bond’s formula. Lever’s fielding in the deep also fulfilled the captain’s wish for committed outcricket and, backed by raucous support, Lancashire won three successive Gillette Cups. “The people in the Long Room at Lord’s didn’t like us going down there and winning,” said Lever. “To them, we were rough buggers from the north.” But the Championship remained elusive. “We should have won it a couple of times in the early ’70s. The weather at Old Trafford is not always the best – you go down to the South-East and they have half as much rain as us.”

Lancashire’s one-day success earned selection for some of England’s early ODIs, including the first, against Australia at the MCG in 1970/71. He played in all four of England’s matches in the 1975 World Cup, and might have tilted the low-scoring semi-final against Australia at Headingley in his team’s favour. “Gary Gilmour was batting with Doug Walters and they were struggling, six down and 50-odd shy. I bowled one across him and he nicked it straight to Tony Greig at slip, who shelled it. That cost us the game.”

On returning to Lancashire after the World Cup, Lever, Frank Hayes and Barry Wood went on strike in a pay dispute before a game against Derbyshire at Old Trafford. Lever’s militancy had been bolstered on discovering that his brother was earning more as a professional for Heywood in the Central Lancashire League. “Lever was a barrack-room lawyer,” wrote David Lloyd, who had succeeded Bond as captain. “He was a clever schoolmaster capable of challenging authority eloquently, and loving every minute of the debate.” When Lancashire won with ease, the trio were disciplined by the county, with Lever banned for two matches. Lloyd recalled: “Peter took such offence that he grabbed me by the throat in the dressing-room and accused me of betraying their cause.”

Lever retired with persistent back trouble at the end of the 1976 season, though there was a one-match comeback amid an injury crisis against Somerset in the NatWest Trophy in 1983, by which time he was 42. He bowled 7.5 wicketless overs, but conceded only 17. “He even found the breath for a couple of appeals,” wrote Brian Bearshaw in the Manchester Evening News. Lever ended his career with 796 first-class wickets at 25, and 272 at just under 18 in one-day matches.

He became assistant coach of Lancashire in the mid-1980s, and mentored the young Mike Atherton, once summoning him to face the formidably quick Jamaican Patrick Patterson in the Old Trafford nets. “Everybody thought Atherton was a miserable sod with no sense of humour,” Lever recalled. “But they couldn’t have been further from the truth – we got on extremely well.” A stint as England bowling coach turned sour during the tour of South Africa in 1995/96, when he was accused by Devon Malcolm of insensitive treatment, and of trying to force him to change his action. Lever later coached Kenya in the 1999 World Cup. He also had a business with his son designing cricket pavilions. He eventually retired to Bratton Clovelly in Devon, where he would plant wild flowers around the village.

Lever’s all-action approach made him a role model for aspiring quick bowlers, including an 11-year-old Jonathan Agnew, taken by his father to the 1971 Gillette Cup final against Kent. “I saw a fast bowler running in from the Nursery End,” said Agnew. “I’d never seen anything like it. I turned to my dad and said: ‘That’s who I want to be.’ It was Peter Lever.” In 2017, when Andrew Strauss organised a dinner at Lord’s for all surviving England Test cricketers, Agnew asked to sit next to Lever. They presented each other with commemorative caps. “They say you should never meet your heroes,” Agnew said. “I’m so lucky I got to know mine.”

Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.