Christopher Donald Michael Tooley (born 19 April 1964) is an English former

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er and a business executive, formerly the Group CEO of

Lycamobile Lyca Mobile is a British mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) operating in 23 countries. It provides international pay-as-you-go SIM cards. The company is chaired by Subaskaran Allirajah. As an MVNO, Lyca Mobile does not own its own mobile ...

. Tooley was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

who bowled right-arm medium pace. He was born at

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is southeast of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 88,000 as of 2023. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, charte ...

, Kent.

Cricket career

Tooley made his first-class debut for

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

against

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

in 1985. From 1985 to 1987, he represented the university in 25 first-class matches, the last of which came in the 1987

University Match The University Match is an annual cricket fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club. First played in 1827, it is the oldest varsity match in the world. Until 2001, when first-class cricket was reorga ...

against

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

; he won

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

for cricket in each of his three years in the team. In his 25 first-class matches, he scored 667 runs at a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 19.61, with 3 half centuries and a high score of 66. In the field he took 9 catches. With the ball he took 2 wickets at a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 18.50, with best figures of 1/16. In 1986, it was for a Combined Universities team that he made his debut in

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the num ...

against

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

in the

Benson and Hedges Cup The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals. It was the third major one-day competition established in Engla ...

. He represented the team in a further 6 List A matches from 1986 to 1987, the last of which came against

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

. In his 7 List A matches for the team, he scored 106 runs at an average of 17.66, with a single half century high score of 62, while in the field he took a single catch. Tooley later represented the

Kent Cricket Board The Kent Cricket Board is the governing body for all recreational cricket in the historic county of Kent. This covers the local authorities within the modern county of Kent as well as the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham ...

in a single List A match against the

Worcestershire Cricket Board The Worcestershire Cricket Board is the governing body for all recreational cricket in the Historic counties of England, historic county of Worcestershire. From 1999 to 2003, the Board fielded a team in the Friends Provident Trophy, English domes ...

in the

1999 NatWest Trophy The 1999 NatWest Trophy was the 19th NatWest Trophy. It was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 4 May and 29 August 1999. The tournament was won by Gloucestershire who defeated Somerset by 50 runs in the fin ...

Business career

Tooley held senior positions at

, a London-based provider of international calling services with operations in several countries. He was described as a "company veteran" when he was appointed as CEO of Lycamobile Group in 2014. He left the role in 2023, and later that year was removed as a director of Lycamobile UK Ltd. In October 2023, along with other Lycamobile executives, Tooley was sentenced in France to a three-year jail term, suspended, and fined 250,000 euros for complicity in VAT tax fraud and money laundering involving the Lycamobile companies.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tooley, Chris 1964 births Living people Cricketers from the London Borough of Bromley People from Bromley English cricketers Oxford University cricketers Kent Cricket Board cricketers Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Oxford and Cambridge Universities cricketers British Universities cricketers 20th-century English sportsmen