Wisden overview
A rock in Essex's pebbly team, Grayson was a surprise call-up as cover for Ashley Giles during the ICC Knockout in Kenya in October 2000. The management explained that his fast, flat left-arm tweakers had impressed several of the England batsmen assembled in Nairobi, who noted his knack for sneaking ball under bat in the National League. Plucked from his winter job in a brewery, and dropped in for one game against South Africa, Grayson registered a golden duck and sent down five workmanlike overs with the game effectively lost. He hardly bowls in Championship cricket, where he prefers to open the batting with a steady technique and unlimited patience – a different sort of job to the one David Graveney and Co. had in mind when they sent him to Zimbabwe as a one-day finisher. Best man at Darren Gough's wedding. Simon Briggs

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