A match-winning bowler, particularly when conditions favoured his style, Peel generally opened the attack, an orthodox tactic for a spinner at the time, and was highly regarded by critics.

Improvements in his batting and his excellence as a fielder kept him in the team, and when Peate was sacked for drunkenness in 1887, Peel became Yorkshire's main spinner.

The first English cricketer to reach 100 wickets against Australia, in 1894–95 he also became the first player to fail to score in four successive Test innings.

[5] At the time, Edmund Peate was the first-choice left-arm spin bowler in the Yorkshire team, and his presence restricted Peel's opportunities.

[7] His obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1942 stated: "Yorkshire were singularly rich in bowling talent, so that [Peel] had to wait several years before attaining real distinction".

[11] During the English winter of 1884–85, Peel was included in the team which toured Australia under the management of Alfred Shaw, Arthur Shrewsbury and James Lillywhite.

[notes 1][24] Peate had been the chief offender for some years, and while he remained Yorkshire's leading left-arm spinner, his disruptive influence and disregard for authority was having a negative effect on the team.

[11] According to his Wisden obituary, he recorded at least two match-winning performances that season: against Kent he took five for 14 and scored 43 runs in a low-scoring game; in the match against Leicestershire he took eleven wickets for 51.

[32] The Australian team, missing several key players,[33] won the first Test match before England recovered to win the final two games.

[53] As the Australians had proved poor on the field, Lord Hawke withdrew Peel and Stanley Jackson from the team for the third Test so that they could play for Yorkshire.

[62] Several of the England team, including Peel, drank heavily in the night thinking the game was lost, but overnight rain drastically changed the nature of the pitch.

[67] The English team were praised for fighting back, but the role of the weather was acknowledged, and some critics blamed the Australians for batting badly in the second innings.

[7] This included the best figures of his career when he took nine for 22 against Somerset; in total he took fifteen wickets in that match,[5] and Wisden described this performance as "causing a sensation".

[82] Both men took over 130 wickets for Yorkshire that season and the pair established an effective bowling partnership until the end of Peel's career.

He took six of the last seven Australian wickets at a cost of 23 runs to bowl England to victory; in recognition of this achievement, Stanley Jackson, a teammate in this game, gave him a gold watch-chain ornament.

[91] Alcohol was popular with many professional cricketers,[24] and the careers of several Yorkshire players in this period, including Peate, had been ended for this reason.

'"[93] Hodgson observes: "It is not impossible, of course, that Bobby was either shy, or 'indisposed' at that particular moment",[93] and suggests that Peel's downfall, like Peate's before him, was because he "was too often the toast of the town".

[98] Later that day, the Yorkshire committee met and resolved to suspend Peel for the remainder of the season for "presenting himself on the field in a state of intoxication".

[100] Contemporary accounts give no indication of trouble on the field involving Peel, but the influential Lord Hawke may have encouraged the press to remain silent.

[92] On the morning of 19 August, replying to suggestions that he was drunk, Peel spoke to a newspaper reporter and stated: "Before I went on the ground at Sheffield—I don't blush to say it—I had two small glasses of gin and water.

That evening, when he went to collect his wages at the end of the game, the Yorkshire secretary, Joseph Wolstenholme, informed him of the suspension on the grounds that his play was "unsatisfactory", and when pressed by Peel for an explanation, he told him: "You have had a glass too much".

[93] After falling asleep in the hotel, he was advised by Hirst to apologise to Lord Hawke, but refused, claiming that he was indispensable to the team and would be recalled.

[93][100] Woodhouse, writing in 1989, suggested that "it is difficult to ascertain the truth behind this long-standing tale",[100] while Hodgson observes: "I have never been convinced of this account because it has always seemed to be so much out of character for a cricketer of that time when so much stress was placed upon behaving 'like a gentleman' even in one's cups.

[108] In 1900, he told Cricket magazine that, before his suspension, he had been bedridden for three weeks as a result of an injury he suffered while batting, that he played against Middlesex with some success and was then suspended without any explanation.

"[91] At the time, Hawke believed these events cost Yorkshire the County Championship, but the team had only two more games to play in that season's competition, and it was mathematically impossible for them to win.

[110] Hirst told Thompson that Hawke was always sorry that Peel had to be sacked, and that whenever the pair met afterwards, they remained friends and that neither bore the other any animosity.

[124] Wisden said that as a bowler, Peel had a "fine length, easy action and splendid command of spin", which meant that he "was often a match-winner".

[1] His main rival as a spinner and for a place in the England team was Johnny Briggs; Peel bowled faster, which made him harder to hit.

[129] Historians regard Peel as part of a long-lasting chain of successful Yorkshire left-arm spinners, preceded by Peate and succeeded by Rhodes.

[64] Frith also suggests that he was sometimes involved in embarrassing situations; for example, when Ranjitsinhji invited him on a hunting trip, "Peel blasted eight barrels at a hare, removing its legs, an ear and much else before chasing the remnants of the animal into a neighbouring property, still firing away, until all life was extinguished".