Graham Richard Napier (born 6 January 1980) is an English former

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 st ...

er. He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm

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bowler, and was capable of bowling 90+mph. Napier played first-class cricket for his home county of

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

since the outset of his senior career in 1997. Between 1997 and 1999 Napier played in four Youth Test matches in England against

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

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(twice) and

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's respective under-19 teams. He was also a member of the

1998 Under-19 Cricket World Cup The 1998 MTN Under-19 World Cup was an international limited-overs cricket tournament played in South Africa from 11 January to 1 February 1998. Sponsored by the MTN Group, it was the second edition of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup, coming ten ...

winning squad. Napier was on the books of

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn professio ...

as a goalkeeper and played for a season on loan at Felixstowe Town. He retired at the end of the 2016 season.

Playing style

Born in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

, Napier was a fast-medium bowler, whose stock delivery reaches between 85 mph-90 mph. Napier has displayed a slower ball in Twenty20 games which proved hard to spot. As a batsman, Napier twice hit 16 sixes in an innings, once in a Twenty20 match, and once in a County Championship match. His fielding has been known to be slightly below par , but it can be put down to the fact that Napier is very injury prone and he cannot afford to throw himself around.

Twenty20 and 40 over

In a

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single inn ...

cup match against

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

on 24 June 2008, Napier scored 152 not out from 58 balls. The innings set a number of records, notably the highest individual score in a T20 innings in England, and in the domestic Twenty20 competition; the highest number of sixes in an individual Twenty20 innings (16); the most runs scored in boundaries in an individual Twenty20 innings (136 runs, scored as 10 fours, and 16 sixes). It also broke the record for most sixes in a domestic one-day innings, and tied the record for most sixes in any domestic innings, tying the record set by

Andrew Symonds Andrew Symonds (9 June 1975 – 14 May 2022) was an Australian international cricketer, who played all three formats as a batting all-rounder. Commonly nicknamed "Roy", he was a key member of two World Cup winning squads. Symonds played as a r ...

, during a

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It b ...

game in 1995. Graham Napier has the record for the highest ever T20 score when batting at number 3 position.(152*). Also he's in second in the list for scoring the most number of boundaries in a T20 innings.(26 boundaries-10 fours and 16 sixes) and also second in the list for hitting the most number of sixes in a T20 innings. He was signed by the Mumbai Indians for the 2009 IPL Season for an undisclosed amount. In March 2009, Napier was called up to the England Lions squad for the first time since 2004. Geoff Miller, one of the selectors, said "the selectors felt this was a good opportunity for us to have a closer look at him within the England set-up". On 1 May 2009, Napier was confirmed as a member of the 15-man England squad for the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup on the same day as he made his first appearance for the

Mumbai Indians Mumbai Indians are a franchise cricket team based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, that competes in the Indian Premier League and is the most successful team of the tournament with 5 titles. Founded in 2008, the team is owned by India's biggest congl ...

. On 3 June 2013, Napier finished a

YB40 The ECB40, last known as the Yorkshire Bank 40 (YB40) for sponsorship reasons, was a forty-over limited overs cricket competition for the English first-class counties. It began in the 2010 English cricket season as a replacement for the Pro40 ...

match with figures of 7 wickets for 32 runs, including 3 maidens, taking 4 wickets in 4 balls as Essex beat Surrey by 178 runs.

First-class

On 19 May 2011, Napier equalled the record for most sixes scored in a first-class innings. He hit 16 sixes as part of a 130-ball 196 for Essex. It was his first first-class innings for 11 months, after being sidelined with a back injury. He hit 103 runs from the last 29 balls of his innings. After his innings, Napier told BBC Essex that he considers himself as mainly a bowler. On 22 June 2013, Napier took career best bowling figures of 7 wickets for 90 runs against Leicestershire.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Napier, Graham 1980 births English cricketers Living people Essex cricketers Wellington cricketers Central Districts cricketers Essex Cricket Board cricketers Mumbai Indians cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Sportspeople from Colchester