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

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. He was born in 1975 in Salisbury - now

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

. Gripper was a somewhat solid 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 one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

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 consi ...

, with his batting average 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 r ...

Invitation XI during

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

'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 Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

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

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

in 2001, as Zimbabwe piled up 542/7 declared. Although only taking six wickets in his test career, he will be forever remembered as the bowler who dismissed Matthew Hayden for 380 runs (Second highest runs scored in a Test Match) in the 1st Test between Australia v Zimbabwe at Perth in October 2003. He has played domestic cricket for

Manicaland Manicaland is a Provinces of Zimbabwe, 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 2012 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census. After Harare and Bulawa ...

and

Mashonaland Mashonaland is a region in northern Zimbabwe. Currently, Mashonaland is divided into four provinces, * Mashonaland West * Mashonaland Central * Mashonaland East * Harare The Zimbabwean capital of Harare, a province unto itself, lies entirely ...

, and it was for the latter that he made his highest first-class score - 234 against Manicaland, which 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. He currently lives and works in Harare and has a family of two children.

References

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