Clarrie Grimmett
Australian cricketer (1891-1980)
Clarence Victor Grimmett (25 December 1891 – 2 May 1980) was a New Zealand-born Australian cricketer. He was one of the finest spin bowlers of his time and usually credited as the developer of the flipper.
Early life in New Zealand
Grimmett was born in Caversham, Dunedin, Colony of New Zealand, on Christmas Day 1891, leading Bill O'Reilly to say that he "must have been the best Christmas present Australia ever received from that country."
A schoolmaster encouraged him to concentrate on spin bowling rather than fast bowling. He played club cricket in Wellington, and made his first-class debut for Wellington at the age of 17. At that time, New Zealand was not a Test cricketing nation, and in 1914 he moved to neighbouring Australia.
Life in Australia
He played club cricket in Sydney for three years. In his first match in senior cricket, he took 12 wickets for 65 runs. After marrying a Victorian, he moved to Melbourne, where he played first-class cricket for Victoria. He moved to South Australia in 1923, but it is for his performances in Test cricket for the Australian cricket team that he is best remembered.
Grimmett played 37 Tests between 1924 and 1936, taking 216 wickets at an average of 24.21.
The public source identifies “Clarrie Grimmett” as australian cricketer (1891-1980). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Clarrie, Grimmett and Australian.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2975685. VIAF identifies the subject as 53381948. The Library of Congress control number is n94069736. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1891, 1980, 1914 and 1923.
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This entry incorporates text from “Clarrie Grimmett” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.