Peter Sleep

Sleep has coached for a number of years. In 2014 the website for the Darren Lehmann Cricket Academy said he had been coaching batting and bowling there for four years.

Australia had just lost 5–1 to England. The selectors decided to drop Peter Toohey, Bruce Yardley and Phil Carlson and replace them with Dav Whatmore, Trevor Laughlin and Sleep. (Later on Laughlin had to withdraw and was replaced with Wayne Clark.)

For the test match, strong bowling from Rodney Hogg and Alan Hurst put Australia in a strong position. However their batsmen collapsed form 3–305 to all out for 310, taking Pakistan to victory. Sleep took 1–16 and 1–62 and scored 10 and 0. The Australian selectors responded to the match by mass changes – something they did throughout the summer: Graeme Wood, Wayne Clark, Jim Higgs and Peter Sleep were dropped for Rick Darling, Trevor Laughlin, Bruce Yardley and Geoff Dymock.

He later took 5–71 and made a fifty against Central Zone, which put him in the frame for the Australian team for the third test. He did not achieve this but was selected in the team for the 4th test, where he took no wickets but scored 64 in Australia's second innings, helping Australia draw. Sleep took part in two crucial partnerships: 76 with Dav Whatmore and 51 with Geoff Dymock. "He will never hit a better 64 in his life" said contemporary reports.

He made the third test team, taking 4–132 in England's first innings. In the 4th test he took 1–61 and made 16 runs. However he was kept on for the fifth test, where Sleep's 5–72 in the second innings helped bowl Australia to victory.

In the second test he took 1–109 and 3–61 plus a score of 62 with the bat. For the third test Sleep top scored in Australia's first innings with 90 but only took 0–31 and 3–107 with the ball; his second innings of 20 helped Australia escape with a draw. For the Bicentennial test he took 2–114 and made 41 in Australia's first innings, the second highest score.

Bruce Yardley's return from illness saw Sleep relegated to 12th man for the fifth test. He was next used in the sixth test, taking no wickets and making four runs, though he did suffer stomach cramps throughout the game.

He was the proprietor of a hotel named "The Wickets" in Rishton, Lancashire until 2009.

However, Sleep was part of an Australian generation of spinners with bowling averages above 40 (for comparison, the first choice leg spinners in 2006, Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill, both averaged below 30 with the ball), also including Tom Hogan, Murray Bennett and Tony Mann, and the cricket website Cricinfo summed up his career as a "relatively anodyne slow bowler". Sleep himself describes his test career as "mediocre".

In 1991 he broke the Lancashire league batting record, held for 40 years by Everton Weekes with 1,621 runs. In 1995 he helped Rishton to win the league for the first time since the 1950s. He captained and coached the Lancashire 2nd XI to a championship where he worked with a young Andrew Flintoff.

South Australia awarded Sleep a testimonial year in 1991/92, only the second time in South Australian cricket a player had been awarded a testimonial year (the first was David Hookes in 1990/91).

His next test was in 1989–90 against Sri Lanka where Sleep made an important contribution to an Australian victory, top scoring in Australia's first innings with 47 and taking five wickets. For Sleep's last test, against Pakistan, he took two wickets and made 20 runs in all.

Sleep did not play for Australia again until the 1988 tour of Pakistan. He took five wickets in a tour match against the BCCP XI but was overlooked in favour of Tim May for the first test.

During the 1987–88 summer Sleep played the first test against New Zealand. He took no wickets but his first innings knock of 39 was Australia's second highest score and help with a rare Australian victory.

He was a leg spinner who was in and out of the team, rarely playing two games in succession, though after taking ten wickets in the 1986–87 Ashes he was retained for the next four Tests after the series before falling out of favour again.

The 1986–87 series which included his best bowling figures in a Test innings, five for 72 in the second innings as England failed to chase 320 for the win.

Sleep next played for Australia in the 1986–87 Ashes. He was recalled for the second test side, playing 12th man.

Sleep had a strong 1985–86 season, making 793 runs at 44.

Sleep's consistent performances at first class level saw him selected on Australia's 1982 tour of Pakistan. An illness to Bruce Yardley saw him picked to play in the second test, where he took 1–158 and scored 30 runs over two innings. He was replaced in the third test by Terry Alderman.

On his return to Australia, Sleep was unable to force himself back into the test side, the selectors preferring Ray Bright, Jim Higgs and Bruce Yardley as spinner. He was overlooked for the 1981 tour of England, for instance, despite a summer where he scored 663 runs at 41 and took 22 wickets at 34.

However Sleep was an important part of South Australia's Sheffield Shield winning team in 1981–82.

Sleep was picked on the 1979 tour to India. He was one of three spinners in the squad, the others being Jim Higgs and Bruce Yardley. This meant he had to break a contract with the Lancashire League, and Sleep was fined.

In 1978–79 a spell of 6–94 and innings of 91 against NSW saw him in the frame for test selection. He followed this up with 5–24 in 13 overs against Queensland.

In 1977–78 he scored 363 runs at an average of 40.

Peter Sleep made his first class debut in 1976–77 while still a teenager. In only his second game he took part in a 159 run partnership with David Hookes against Queensland.

Peter Raymond Sleep (born 4 May 1957]]) is a former Australian cricketer who played 14 Test matches for Australia between 1979 and 1990.