Lewis Gregory

Lewis Gregory has maintained throughout his career that he is a batting - rather than a bowling - allrounder, and proved as much in the 2018 T20 Blast when he hit 328 runs at a strike-rate over 200, belatedly leading to an England call for the 2019 tour of New Zealand. A controlled seamer with red ball in hand, Gregory has become one of the most consistent performers in the county game, despite injuries plaguing him for much of his career.

Once an England Under-19 captain, Gregory's professional career was largely defined by fits and starts until the 2014 season, when he began to produce regular performances with the ball across formats, and slammed a 70-ball ton in a List A game against Durham as a reminder of his promise with the bat.

He came close to an England debut in 2015, as a non-playing member of a weakened squad to play Ireland in Dublin in Peter Moores' last game in charge, and was selected for a Lions squad before missing out due to a back injury. He frequently found himself on the sidelines or playing through pain over the next few seasons, and was not far away from a move to Middlesex during the 2018 campaign.

But that season, which saw him made T20 captain, turned out to be the one in which he came of age. There were useful Championship runs and wickets in addition to his stellar hitting as a finisher in the Blast, and he passed the 50 wickets mark in a first-class season for the first time in 2019 as Somerset's title charge fell at the final hurdle. He was an unused member of the Test squad against Ireland and might have played in the Ashes but for a foot injury, while his continued six-hitting prowess saw him named in the T20 squad for the first time.

His England career proved short-lived and he struggled to translate his T20 Blast form into international cricket. But he proved better-suited to the 50-over game, hitting a vital 77 off 69 balls against Pakistan at Edgbaston in 2021 which helped England's Covid-depleted squad clinch a 3-0 whitewash.

Gregory started to win deals on the short-form circuit in the English winter, playing in - among others - the Big Bash, the BPL, the PSL and the SA20, and was the most successful captain across the first two seasons of the Hundred. Expertly juggling his resources, he led Trent Rockets to the eliminator in 2021, then hit the winning runs in a low-scoring 2022 final.

ESPNcricinfo staff