David Malcolm Kerr Grant (born 24 May 1997) is an Australian

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er from

North Adelaide North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct and suburb of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands. History Surveyor-General Colonel William Light of the colo ...

, South Australia. He is a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

and bowls right-arm

medium-fast Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

, basing his bowling style on former Test cricketer

Glenn McGrath Glenn Donald McGrath (; born 9 February 1970) is an Australian former international cricketer who played international cricket for 14 years. He was a fast-medium pace bowler (cricket), bowler and is considered one of the greatest international ...

. Grant has played internationally for Australia's national under-19 team and currently plays domestically for

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

Youth career (2014–2016)

When Grant started playing cricket, he decided to model himself after the Australian

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

bowler

, who was dominating world cricket at the time. Rather than trying to

bowl A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, or consuming food. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a spherical cap, with the edges and the bottom forming a seamless curve. This makes ...

as quickly as he could, McGrath focused on movement off the seam and consistently bowling the ball in the right place, so Grant followed the same suit in his own bowling. While he was still a teenager, Grant started to play cricket for Australia's national under-19 team, making his Youth

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

(ODI) debut in 2014 against

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. The second innings of the match was washed out and Grant did not get an opportunity to bowl. During 2015 Grant spent the winter training at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane, and during his time there he also got to spend time training under Glenn McGrath at India's

MRF Pace Foundation MRF Pace Foundation is a coaching clinic for training fast bowlers from all over the world. Based in Chennai, India, it was founded in 1987 by MRF Limited, with the help of former Australian pace spearhead Dennis Lillee. Through this program, you ...

. Grant described this experience as "definitely the highlight" of his career to that point. Grant was selected to play for Australia later in the winter in England. He played Youth Test matches against England and took part in a Youth ODI series against them as well, with a highlight performance in the third match, taking three

wickets In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

in consecutive overs with spearing

yorkers In cricket, a yorker is a ball bowled (a delivery) which hits the cricket pitch around the batsman's feet. When a batsman assumes a normal stance, this generally means that the cricket ball bounces on the cricket pitch on or near the batsman's ...

. After strong performances for Australia in a variety of conditions, he was selected to play for

in the national under-19 championships at the end of 2016. Overall, Grant played two Youth Tests and nine Youth ODIs.

Domestic career (2016–present)

In September 2016 Grant represented the

National Performance Squad The National Performance Squad, also known as the Australia National Performance Squad, is a cricket team established by Cricket Australia in 2014 to give experience for young Australian state contracted players in international List A cricket. Si ...

team in the Quadrangular Tournament, with Australia A,

India A The India A cricket team is a national cricket team representing India. It is the second-tier of Indian international cricket, below the full India national cricket team. The team is currently captained by Priyank Panchal in first-class cricket a ...

and South Africa A being the other three teams. During the tournament, he made his

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

debut against South Africa A and was a standout performer with bowling figures of four wickets for 31 runs to help the National Performance Squad to a 17-run victory, bowling out South Africa A for 226. Grant was given a rookie contract with South Australia's state cricket team for the 2016–17 season and, because he was not selected to play for South Australia in the

2016–17 Matador BBQs One-Day Cup The 2016 Australian domestic limited-overs cricket tournament, Matador BBQs One-Day Cup was the 47th season of the official List A cricket, List A Australian domestic limited-overs cricket tournament, domestic cricket competition in Australia. It ...

, he was part of the

Cricket Australia XI Cricket Australia XI is a domestic cricket team that plays matches against international teams touring Australia. The team formerly played in Australia's JLT Cup limited-overs tournament. Before each tournament, a 14-man squad was selected fro ...

squad for the tournament instead, along with a number of people he'd played and trained with in the National Performance Squad. Later in the season, he was also given an opportunity to make his

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 one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

debut when he was named in South Australia's 12-man squad for two consecutive matches in the

2016–17 Sheffield Shield season The 2016–17 Sheffield Shield season was the 115th season of the Sheffield Shield, the domestic first-class cricket competition in Australia. It started on 25 October 2016 and finished on 30 March 2017. There was a break between December and J ...

. His debut came against

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

on 5 December 2017. He took two wickets for 55 runs in his first bowling innings. In March, Grant suffered a foot stress fracture, meaning he couldn't play for South Australia for the rest of the season, but he was still upgraded from his rookie contract to a full contract with South Australia for the next season.

Player profile

Grant is a tall

pace bowler Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

. As he has based his playing style on McGrath, Grant does not focus on bowling very quickly. He is a seam bowler who works on getting the ball in the right place and only bowls at speeds of around , though

South Australian Cricket Association The South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) is the peak body for the sport of cricket in South Australia. The association administers the Southern Redbacks based in Adelaide. SACA is the controlling body for the South Australian Grade Cri ...

high-performance manager

Tim Nielsen Timothy John Nielsen (born 5 May 1968) is a former South Australia state cricketer and formerly the head coach of the Australian cricket team. Nielsen played 101 first-class matches for his state between 1990–91 and 1998–99. Nielsen was co ...

has said he is capable of getting into the 130's. Nielsen has also said that he is similar to fellow Redbacks bowler

Chadd Sayers Chadd James Sayers (born 31 August 1987) is a former Australian cricketer from South Australia. After spending several years in the South Australian Grade Cricket League as one of the best pace bowlers in the state, Sayers began playing first-c ...

, but as he is taller and potentially faster, he could become more like Australian Test bowler

Josh Hazlewood Josh Reginald Hazlewood (born 8 January 1991) is an Australian international cricketer. He is a tall pace bowler known for his accuracy and has been compared to former Australian paceman Glenn McGrath. Hazlewood currently ranks no.2 in ODI, no.1 ...

with time. His experience on pitches around the world from a young age have given him more experience in different conditions and helped his development.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grant, David 1997 births Australian cricketers Living people South Australia cricketers Brisbane Heat cricketers Cricketers from Adelaide