Trevor Raymond Gripper is a Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

an cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er. He was born on December 28, 1975 in Salisbury - now Harare

Harare

Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...

.

Gripper is 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

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 he may fairly be considered an all-rounder

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 few batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are considered specialists...

, with his batting average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 above 33 and his bowling average

Bowling average

Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...

 below 32.

Gripper made his first-class debut for a Matabeleland

Matabeleland

Modern day Matabeleland is a region in Zimbabwe 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 rivers. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people...

 Invitation XI during Worcestershire

Worcestershire County Cricket Club

Worcestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Worcestershire...

's 1996/97 tour of Zimbabwe, scoring 45 in the number 1 position before being caught by Graeme Hick

Graeme Hick

Graeme Ashley Hick MBE is a Zimbabwean-born cricketer who played 65 Test matches and 120 One Day Internationals for England. He played county cricket for Worcestershire for his entire English domestic career, a period of well over twenty years, and in 2008 he surpassed Graham Gooch's record for...

 off the bowling of Gavin Haynes

Gavin Haynes

Gavin Haynes born September 29, 1969 in Stourbridge is a retired professional cricketer who played for Worcestershire from 1991 to 1999.Gavin Haynes now coaches Dudley District Cricket club and plays for Ombersley C.C.-External links:...

. 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

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 debut in October 1999 against Australia

Australian cricket team

The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...

 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

Bangladeshi cricket team

The Bangladesh national cricket team is a national cricket team representing Bangladesh. The team is administered by the Bangladesh Cricket Board . Bangladesh is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International status...

 in 2001, as Zimbabwe piled up 542/7 declared.

He has played domestic cricket for Matabeleland, Manicaland

Manicaland

Manicaland is a province of Zimbabwe. It has an area of and a population of approximately 1.6 million . Mutare is the capital of the province. -Background:...

 and Mashonaland

Mashonaland

Mashonaland is a region in northern Zimbabwe. It is the home of the Shona people.Currently, Mashonaland is divided into three provinces, with a total population of about 3 million:* Mashonaland West* Mashonaland Central* Mashonaland East...

, 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.