Peter Lee

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For the ice hockey player, see Peter Lee (hockey player). For the chess player, see Peter Lee (chess player). For the miner, see Peter Lee (miner).

Peter Granville Lee, born at Arthingworth, Northamptonshire, on August 27, 1945, was a cricketer who played for Northamptonshire and Lancashire.

Lee was a right-arm fast-medium bowler who moved the ball off the seam and took a lot of wickets in English county cricket in the 1970s. In 1973 and again in 1975, he achieved the now-rare feat of taking more than 100 wickets in an English first-class season, and his 112 wickets in 1975 was the highest by any bowler that season. He was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the 1976 edition of the almanack.

Lee played for five seasons from 1967 for Northamptonshire without ever becoming a regular in the side. He moved to Lancashire in 1972 largely as insurance for the likelihood that regular opening bowlers Peter Lever and Ken Shuttleworth would be called up for Test cricket by England. But at county level, Lee proved useful in his own right, taking 101 wickets in 1973. Injured and ill, he played very little in 1974, but he returned for a full season and even greater success in 1975. He remained successful, albeit taking fewer wickets, for two more seasons, but in 1978, he played only one match because of a shoulder injury, and he was an irregular player in the following seasons until his retirement in 1982.

Lee appears never to have been considered seriously for Test cricket. He toured South Africa twice with teams organised by Derick Robins. His batting was negligible: his highest first-class score in more than 200 matches was 26.