ESSEX cricketer Graham Napier will be retiring at the end of the 2016 season.

It will bring the curtain down on a 19-year First Class career with the county.

Napier will then become director of the new Graham Napier Cricket Academy at Suffolk’s Royal Hospital School.

“The opportunity at RHS is one that I could not turn down,” said Napier.

“I feel the time is right to move on, and give back to the game that has given me so much.

“I have loved every second of playing for Essex, and will be doing my best to make sure I retire with a bang at the end of the season.”

Napier made his debut for Essex in 1997, and has currently played 157 First-Class matches, 213 List A games and 97 Twenty20 clashes for the county.

Highlights during that time included equalling of his own world record 16 sixes in a mammoth 196 made against Surrey in 2011 and his four wickets in four balls against the same opponents in 2013.

But for many his crowining glory was his innings against Sussex Sharks on June 24, 2008.

Essex were 13-1 when Napier came to the crease but when he returned to the pavilion at the end of the 20 overs, Essex had reached 242-3, and Napier had smashed 152 off just 58 balls, setting his original sixes record during that innings.

Ronnie Irani, Essex’s cricket committee chairman saluted the long-serving all-rounder.

“Graham has had a fabulous career in all three formats of the game for us, and has been the very definition of loyalty over the past 19 years, which is what Essex County Cricket Club and its supporters are all about,” he said.

“We naturally wish Graham all the best with his next career move and he will be sorely missed.”

A bowling all-rounder, Napier has a batting average of 29.86 in all First-Class cricket, with a bowling equivalent of 31.40; a batting strike-rate in Twenty20 of 148.27, with 142 wickets at 24.38 in the shortest format; and in List A cricket, Napier took 287 wickets over his career, at 26.04.

The Graham Napier Cricket Academy at the Royal Hospital School will be launched this September.

It aims to establish a high profile centre of cricketing excellence to develop young cricketers and promoting participation at all levels and ages, among pupils at the school and in the wider community.