A chap in his early 20s, James Bracey made his Gloucestershire debut in 2016 against Sussex. As a top-order batsman in that match, Bracey had scores of 2 & 12, but since then he has improved as a batsman and his career graph has only gone upwards. Although a very good wicket-keeper, Bracey played as a specialist batsman on debut and that is more than enough to prove his worth.

Bracey's career-best of 156 came against Glamorgan in 2017 and it was a fruitful year for the lad, as he ended the season with a mind-blowing batting average of 50-plus. In 2019, Bracey played an excellent innings against Derbyshire when Gloucestershire was chasing 263 on the final day. At a strike rate of 81, the lad smashed 116 runs and helped his team hunt down the target in the last two sessions of the match. He did get support from other batsmen, but it was due to Bracey's scintillating knock that Gloucestershire managed to register an 8-wicket win against Derbyshire.

A few days before this century, Bracey played an important knock in one of the matches of Vitality Blast having scored 64 at number 3. They were chasing 140-odd and due to Bracey's quickfire fifty, Gloucestershire managed to pull off the chase in the 18th over, beating Hampshire by 7 wickets.

Written by Nikhil Jadhav