Trevor Raymond Gripper (born 28 December 1975) is a former Zimbabwean

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er. He was born in 1975 in Salisbury (now

Harare Harare ( ), formerly Salisbury, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of , a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metrop ...

). Gripper was an opening batsman, who once spent four hours 23 minutes inching his way to 28 in a match against England A. However, his off-spin bowling has also proved useful, and in

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

he may fairly be considered an

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are cons ...

, with his

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 is ...

above 33 and his

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 ...

below 32. Gripper made his first-class debut for a

Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...

Invitation XI during

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

's 1996/97 tour of Zimbabwe, by scoring 45. However, he did not play another match at that level until the aforementioned game against England A in February 1999. Gripper made his Test match debut in October 1999 against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

at Harare; the selectors' decision was somewhat surprising since at the time Gripper had still not recorded a first-class century. He made 60 in the second innings. His maiden Test hundred came against

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in 2001, as Zimbabwe piled up 542/7 declared. Although only taking six wickets in his Test career, he was notable as the bowler who dismissed

Matthew Hayden Matthew Lawrence Hayden (born 29 October 1971) is an Australian cricket commentator and former cricketer. His career spanned fifteen years. Hayden was a powerful and aggressive left-handed opening batsman who, along with opening partners Ju ...

for 380 runs (second highest runs scored in a Test match) in the first Test between Australia and Zimbabwe at Perth in October 2003. He played domestic cricket for

Manicaland Manicaland is a province in eastern Zimbabwe. After Harare Province, it is the country's second-most populous province, with a population of 2.037 million, as of the 2022 census. Making it the third most densely populated province after Harare a ...

and

Mashonaland Mashonaland is a region in northeastern Zimbabwe. It is home to nearly half of the population of Zimbabwe. The majority of the Mashonaland people are from the Shona tribe while the Zezuru and Korekore dialects are most common. Harare is the larg ...

, and it was for the latter that he made his highest first-class score - 234 against Manicaland, this performance brought him a recall to the Zimbabwe team for the 2003/04 tour of Australia. He also played two seasons for Cranleigh Cricket Club in Surrey (1999 and 2004) totalling over 1,400 1st XI runs and 68 wickets.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gripper, Trevor 1975 births Living people Zimbabwe One Day International cricketers Zimbabwe Test cricketers 21st-century Zimbabwean sportsmen Zimbabwean cricketers Manicaland cricketers Mashonaland cricketers Mashonaland A cricketers Matabeleland cricketers Alumni of St. George's College, Harare Cricketers from Harare White Zimbabwean sportspeople