occasional fast-medium bowler, Grant played one first-class match for Cambridge University in 1928, then established himself in the side in 1929, scoring 691 runs in 14 matches at an average of 31.40. He improved on this record in 1930, when he scored 716 runs in 11 matches at an average of 44.75, including his first century, 100 against Sussex. In 1930, while in his final months at Cambridge, Grant was offered the captaincy of the West Indies Test team on its tour of Australia in 1930-31. This was an unusual appointment, as not only had he not played Test cricket, he had never played first-class cricket in the West Indies. He said: "I was younger than all of the sixteen players, save three; and most of these sixteen had already played for the West Indies, and I had not. Yet I was the captain. It could not be disputed that my white colour was a major factor in my being given the post." At the time the West Indian authorities considered it essential that the Test team be led by a white man, despite the fact that the top players were black, such as George Headley and Learie Constantine. The tour of Australia was not a success, the West Indies losing the first four Tests easily. They regained some pride in the Fifth Test, when Grant's two well-timed declarations put Australia under pressure on a difficult pitch and the West Indies won in a close finish by 30 runs. Despite their modest results, the West Indians were popular in Australia, wrote the Australian cricket historian A. G. Moyes, because they "played cricket as though it was great fun – seriously enough but with gaiety mixed with gravity". Grant led the team's Test batting averages with 255 runs at 42.30, including 53 not out and 71 not out in the Second Test. He was the first player in Test cricket to score two unbeaten fifties in the same match. While teaching in Southern Rhodesia, Grant played for Rhodesia in the 1931-32 Currie Cup under the captaincy of Hamish Campbell-Rodger, helping the team to finish a close second in the competition. He played his first first-class match in the West Indies in 1932-33, when he led one of the sides in a match to help select the team to tour England later that year. The 1933 tour of England was another unsuccessful