The Wisden Club Cricket Hall of Fame

Scott Oliver profiles a Staffordshire strokemaker who took down the Aussies.

The following article of Peter Gill (H’61) featured in the March 2022 edition of Wisden Cricket Monthly, Issue 53. © www.wisden.com

Most young English cricketers grow up dreaming of a match-winning performance against Australia yet very few achieve it, even among full-time pros. In 1977, Peter Gill, Staffordshire’s 29-yearold opener, caressed 92 as the Minor Counties XI took advantage of a sporting declaration to beat the Australian tourists in Sunderland: Doug Walters, David Hookes, Kerry O’Keefe, Len Pascoe, et al. He had also made 39 in the first innings, earning him £100 as Player of the Match, a quick radio interview and a champagne celebration. “There were 40 or so still to get when I got out,” he says, “having a slog at one from Gary Cosier. It was the innings of my life.”

It was a golden summer for Gill, whose 710 runs were the most in the Minor Counties Championship. He also captained his club, Longton, to the North Sta & South Cheshire League (NSSCL) title, scoring 711 runs at over 50 to top the league averages. There was a handy 41 for the Minor Counties XI against Essex in the B&H Cup, too, that tough earlyseason gig for undercooked club players, “particularly against Peter Lever on a flyer at Old Trafford!”

Astonishingly, Gill debuted for Staffordshire before he had even played for Longton firsts. It was 1966, he had just finished his A-levels at Repton – where he won the first of three

*Cricketer Cups the following summer, beating PBH May’s Charterhouse in the semis and ER Dexter’s Radley in the final – and he was drafted in to play against Lancashire second XI at the behest of Staffs skipper and former England batter Jack Ikin. “I then made my first-team debut for Longton on the Saturday,” he adds. The club won the title that year, landing five in his first seven seasons.

Gill slowly learnt his trade during those early NSSCL years, facing the likes of Garry Sobers and Sonny Ramadhin, making steady if unspectacular contributions. However, in his pomp, from ’74 to ’83 –five years at Longton and four at Stone, split by a season in the North Staffs and District League as pro for Kidsgrove – he amassed 6,137 NSSCL runs at 47.57, twice finishing top of the averages, three times coming second, and notching a century in each campaign.

He averaged 60.86 in his final year at Longton, the second highest ever in the league. He then topped the NSDCL averages and run charts for Kidsgrove (942 at 52.6). And he averaged 57.39 in his debut season at Stone, when his 1,038 runs made him the first player in NSSCL history to break the four-figure mark. The following year, he scored 116 in the inaugural Stffs Cup final as Stone beat West Bromwich Dartmouth. It was the purplest of patches.

That breakout 1974 season saw Gill make 52 on List-A debut against Glamorgan at Longton, which helped get him on the radar for the Minor Counties XI, for whom he debuted in the 1976 B&H Cup. In 1978, a year after downing the Aussies, Gill made 49 as the Kiwis were beaten in Torquay.

Back with Stffordshire, Gill would rack up 141 MCCA Championship appearances, scoring 6,814 runs and skippering the team from 1982 to ’84. In his first game as cial captain, against Shropshire at Shrewsbury, he suffered a horrific injury that would blight the rest of his career, his head colliding with a colleague’s shoulder as he attempted to take a steepling catch. “I had a depressed fracture of the cheekbone and a shattered orbital floor. I had to have emergency surgery to save my eye, and still have a plastic plate in there. I was lucky we weren’t playing out in the sticks. I was never the same player after that.”

Gill played his final Staffordshire game in 1985, signing off for Stone three years later, aged just 40. In 2015, he was coaxed from the golf course to become president of the county he had served with such distinction as an elegant and highly productive run-maker.

* Editorial note: there were two Cricketer Cup wins, not three.