Peter Willey

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	Tests	ODIs
Peter Willey England (Eng)

Batting style	Right-hand bat
Bowling type	Right-arm offbreak
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/-
As of 1 January 2006 Source: Cricinfo.com

Peter Willey (born December 6, 1949) 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.

[edit] The Open Stance

Willey was 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 arguable ugliness and found technical reasons why its exponents were doomed to fail. Curiously, while Willey enjoyed success against the leading bowling attack of the day, the West Indies pacemen, (he scored 2 hundreds against them), his overall Test batting career was rather mediocre, as exemplified by an average of less than 27.

[edit] Willey and humour

Willey is part of one of the most famous moments of BBC cricket commentary. During a Test match between the West Indies and England, Willey was to bowl to Michael Holding (not as often misreported the other way round, Holding being a fast bowler and Willey a more successful batsman than bowler). The commentator at the time, Brian Johnston, described the action, quite accurately, as "The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willey". [1]

In 1979, Willey caught Dennis Lillee off the bowling of Graham Dilley, resulting in a scorecard of "Lillee c Willey b Dilley".