Colin Lever (born 4 August 1939) is a former English

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

er. Lever was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, th ...

who bowled right-arm

medium pace Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

. He was born in

Todmorden Todmorden ( ; ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is north-east of Manchester, south-east of Burnley and west of Halifax, West Yorkshire, Hal ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

. Lever made his debut for

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-eas ...

in the 1962

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

against Oxfordshire. He played

Minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket for Buckinghamshire from 1962 to 1978, which included 91 Minor Counties Championship matches. In 1965, he made his

List A 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 numbe ...

debut against

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbourin ...

in the Gillette Cup. He played seven further List A matches for Buckinghamshire, the last coming against Middlesex in the 1975 Gillette Cup. In these eight matches, he scored 69 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 i ...

of 11.50, with a high score of 20. With the ball he took 7 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 43.00, with best figures of 3/19. During his career, Lever made a single first-class appearance for a combined

Minor Counties cricket team The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

against the touring

South Africans The population of South Africa is about 58.8 million people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The South African National Census of 2022 was the most recent census held; the next will be in 2032. In 2011, Statistics Sout ...

in 1965 at

Osborne Avenue, Jesmond Osborne Avenue is a cricket ground in Jesmond, Tyne and Wear. It was originally known as the Constabulary Ground. It is currently the home ground of Newcastle Cricket Club, Royal Grammar School Newcastle and Northumberland County Cricket Club. ...

. In this match he took 3 wickets in the South Africans first-innings, those of

Graeme Pollock Robert Graeme Pollock (born 27 February 1944) is a former cricketer for South Africa, Transvaal and Eastern Province. A member of a famous cricketing family, Pollock is widely regarded as one of South Africa's greatest ever cricketers, and as ...

Colin Bland Kenneth Colin Bland (5 April 1938 – 14 April 2018) was a Rhodesian cricketer who played in 21 Test matches for South Africa in the 1960s. He is regarded as one of the greatest fielders in the history of Test cricket. Cricket career Colin ...

and Norman Crookes. In the Minor Counties first-innings he was dismissed for 12 by

Jackie Botten James Thomas "Jackie" Botten (21 June 1938 – 14 May 2006) was a South African cricketer who played in three Tests in 1965. Botten was an opening bowler and useful lower-order batsman who played domestic first-class cricket for North Eastern T ...

, before taking a further South African wicket in their second-innings. In the Minor Counties second-innings scored 8 runs before being dismissed by

off spin Off spin is a type of finger spin bowling in cricket. A bowler who uses this technique is called an off spinner. Off spinners are right-handed spin bowlers who use their fingers to spin the ball. Their normal delivery is an off break, which s ...

ner Norman Crookes. He played as the professional for Heywood in the

Central Lancashire League The Central Lancashire Cricket League (CLCL) was a fifteen team cricket league, traditionally based in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was then based in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. The league ran competitions at First T ...

for nine consecutive seasons from 1968 to 1976, leading Heywood to the championship three times.Heywood CC pro stats
/ref> Lever then moved to play in the

Liverpool and District Cricket Competition The Love Lane Liverpool and District Cricket Competition is regarded as the top level of competition for recreational club cricket in the Liverpool area and since 2000 has been a designated ECB Premier League. The Competition operates a three ...

and, after a spell with Liverpool CC, joined the Northern Cricket Club in 1979. Over the next ten seasons he hit 4 first team centuries and took 7 or more wickets in an innings on 7 occasions. He captained the club for three seasons from 1980 to 1982. Most notably he celebrated his 40th birthday by scoring an undefeated 104 and taking 7 wickets for 28 runs against neighbours Bootle on 4 August 1979. In 1992 in a second team fixture, he took 7 wickets for 56 at the age of 53.. He is the brother of

Peter Lever Peter Lever (born 17 September 1940) is a former English cricketer, who played in seventeen Tests and ten ODIs for England from 1970 to 1975. A fast-medium opening bowler, he took 41 wickets, and was a handy lower-order batsman with a top score ...

, who played

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

and

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World Cup ...

cricket for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

References

External links

Colin Lever
at

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Colin Lever
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Lever, Colin 1939 births Living people People from Todmorden English cricketers Buckinghamshire cricketers Minor Counties cricketers Sportspeople from Yorkshire