Murray-Willis Peter Image 1 Worcestershire 1938

Description

Castle Bromwich, Warwickshire born right-hand batsman Peter Murray-Willis played briefly for Worcestershire before the Second World War, making his debut in County cricket in 1935, and in 1946 he not only won his County cap for Northamptonshire, but also captained the County on 18 occasions. A Wisden writer much later called Murray-Willis a “somewhat miscast captain”, he was chosen in the hope that he would be an approximation of the county’s popular pre-war captain, Robert Nelson, his school friend from St George’s, Harpenden, who had been killed in the War, Murray-Willis having helped organise wartime matches for the club.

His appointment as captain was not a success; there was criticism of his tactics and Murray-Willis’s reputation failed to recover from the time his cap blew off while he was chasing the ball to the boundary, and he stopped to get the cap before returning for the ball – the batsmen were laughing too much to take advantage. He was obliged to resign in mid-season, and left the County game. But he continued playing club cricket until he was in his mid-fifties.

He passed fifty only once in his first class career when making 54 for Northamptonshire against his former County of Worcestershire, in a high-scoring match at Kidderminster in July 1946, averaging 10.37 with the bat from 29 first class matches.

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