Grahame Clinton
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| Batting style | Left-handed batsman (LHB) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | Right-arm medium | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: CricketArchive | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Grahame Selvey Clinton (born 5 May 1953 at Sidcup, Kent) is a former English cricketer. He was an opening batsman who played for Kent from 1974 to 1978 and for Surrey from 1979 to 1990.
After his first-class debut for Kent, against the touring Pakistanis in July 1974, it was 1976 before he played for the first team again. With the exception of 1977, his opportunities for Kent remained limited and his performances for them were mediocre, and he joined Surrey prior to the 1979 season.
At Surrey, he immediately formed with Alan Butcher a successful opening partnership that lasted until the 1986 season, when Butcher suffered a loss of form and was dropped down the order and then omitted from the side (he was released by Surrey at the end of the season). Their first wicket stands included 277 against Yorkshire in 1984, when Clinton made his highest score of 192, and 266 against Cambridge University in 1980. Their respective sons, Richard Clinton and Mark Butcher, have sometimes appeared in the same Surrey side in recent seasons.
Butcher and Clinton shared 19 century opening partnerships for Surrey. With all partners, Clinton took part in 31 such partnerships, and 73 century stands when all wickets are considered.
He scored over a thousand runs in his first season with Surrey, a feat he achieved on six other occasions: 1980, 1981, 1985, 1986, 1988 and 1990. His best seasons, when he averaged in the forties, were 1984, 1985, 1988 and 1990, suggesting that he improved as a batsman towards the end of his career, However he had poor seasons in 1983 and 1989, when his average fell below 25.
He was still scoring as heavily as ever during his final season, with 1292 runs at 46.14. He and Darren Bicknell added 321 for the first wicket against Northamptonshire. Appropriately, his final first-class match was against his old county of Kent. He scored 57 in his only innings of a very high-scoring match.
He was by nature a defensive batsman. The Surrey coach Micky Stewart said that he "formed the backbone of the innings, the platform from which our strokemakers can play." In spite of this, he eventually made himself a valuable member of Surrey's side in List A matches, as his statistics show.
He was famously injury-prone, being taken to hospital in fifteen of the then seventeen first-class counties.
He played 4 matches for Zimbabwe-Rhodesia in 1979-80. He now teaches cricket at Colfe's School in London.
References
- CricketArchive
- Surrey County Cricket Club First-Class Records 1846-2000, Limited Overs Records 1963-2000, compiled by The Surrey Statistics Group, published by Surrey CCC.
- Cricinfo profile