Graham Napier

Graham Napier

Personal information
Full name	Graham Richard Napier
Born	(1980-01-06) 6 January 1980 (age 37) Colchester, Essex, England
Nickname	Napes, George
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Right-arm medium
Role	All-rounder
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1997–2016	Essex (squad no. 17)
2000	Essex Cricket Board
2004	MCC
2008–2009	Wellington
2009–2011	Mumbai Indians
2009–2011	Central Districts
2014	Wellington
First-class debut	7 May 1997 Essex v Cambridge University
Last First-class	12 September 2016 Essex v Glamorgan
List A debut	10 August 1997 Essex v Kent
Last List A	17 August 2016 Essex v Warwickshire
Career statistics
Competition FC LA T20 Matches 179 246 137 Runs scored 5,739 2,971 1,206 Batting average 29.28 18.33 15.66 100s/50s 7/31 0/14 1/0 Top score 196 79 152* Balls bowled 25,213 8,762 2,905 Wickets 490 299 164 Bowling average 30.12 25.93 23.35 5 wickets in innings 17 4 0 10 wickets in match 0 n/a n/a Best bowling 7/21 7/32 4/10 Catches/stumpings 63/– 58/– 43/–
Source: CricketArchive, 15 September 2016

Graham Richard Napier (born 6 January 1980) is a former English cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast bowler, and is capable of bowling 90+mph. Napier has played first-class cricket for his home county of Essex since the outset of his senior career in 1997. Between 1997 and 1999 Napier played in four Youth Test matches in England against Zimbabwe, South Africa (twice) and Australia's respective under-19 teams. He was also a member of the 1998 Under-19 Cricket World Cup winning squad. Napier was on the books of Ipswich Town as a goalkeeper and played for a season on loan at Felixstowe Town. He retired at the end of the 2016 season.

Born in Colchester, Essex, Napier is a fast-medium bowler, whose stock delivery reaches between 85 mph-90 mph. Napier has displayed a slower ball in Twenty20 games which has proved hard to spot. As a batsman, Napier can be among the most deadly not only in domestic cricket but in world cricket also. He has 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.

Napier participated in the 2003, 2004 and 2006 Twenty20 Cups, in which he aided his Essex team to the 2004 quarter-finals.

In a Twenty20 cup match against Sussex 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, during a County Championship game in 1995.