Colin Blythe
Encyclopedia
Colin Blythe also known as Charlie Blythe, was a Kent and England left arm spinner
who is regarded as one of the finest bowlers of the period between 1900 and 1914 - sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age" of cricket
.
not permitted by the Yorkshire committee to tour Australia, Blythe surprisingly went in his place but did not prove a totally adequate substitute. On a crumbling wicket at the SCG he proved below his best and Victor Trumper
's hitting mastered him very quickly. However, in the very wet summers of 1902 and 1903 Blythe became one of the leading wicket-takers in county cricket and the undisputed leader of the second-strongest (after Yorkshire) bowling attack in the country. By this time, he had shown himself an exceptionally skillful bowler with the most deceptive flight of any spinner in county cricket. This skillful flight and ability to bowl, without change of action, a much faster ball that went with his arm (that is, from off to leg stump instead of from leg to off) allowed him to be successful even on dry and true pitches (as he showed against a strong Middlesex side at Tonbridge in 1903). On sticky or even slightly crumbled pitches, Blythe was almost always unplayable, and he was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1904.
In 1905, with fast bowler Arthur Fielder
, losing form, Blythe was kept extremely busy on the many hard pitches and was thus more expensive than in any other year apart from 1901. Injury in 1906 handicapped him further, but on the rock-hard wickets of that exceptionally dry summer in the Home Counties
he and Fielder bowled so well in July and August that Kent won their first County Championship with eleven successive victories.
In 1907, Blythe, though aided by a summer of extremely favourable pitches, moved onto the international stage by taking 26 wickets in three Tests
against South Africa, including 15 for 99 in the second Test at Headingley
- not bettered in England until the extraordinary deeds of Jim Laker
in 1956. Though the pitch and the appalling quality of the opposing batting make this much less of a feat, his 17 for 48 (10 for 30 and 7 for 18) against Northamptonshire in a day on 1 June 1907 still stands as the best bowling analysis in the County Championship
. It is also the most wickets any bowler has ever taken in a single day's cricket (since equalled by Hedley Verity
and Tom Goddard
).
In late 1908, Blythe's amazingly imaginative skill reached perhaps its highest point ever: in a period of hot weather and dry pitches Blythe, without the aid of Fielder, still won match after match: he showed that, no matter how well set a batsman looked, he was capable of deceiving them and gaining vital wickets. His ability to relish the challenge of bowling to batsmen who were capable of hitting large scores very rapidly was well-known, and frequently Blythe's skill rewarded him: his duel with Jack Hobbs
at Blackheath in 1908 is regarded as some of the highest-standard county cricket ever played.
In 1909, again aided by many rain-affected pitches, Blythe took over 200 wickets and at Edgbaston
, took 11 wickets to win the First Test against Australia. He also took nine wickets in an innings against Leicestershire and Northamptonshire - though the standard of batting makes these less noteworthy efforts. However, later Tests of that series suggested Blythe was starting to lose his skill on good pitches, a fact borne out in 1911, when his average of 19 runs a wicket in an exceptionally dry summer would have been much higher but for a few deadly performances when pitches were exceedingly helpful.
In his last three seasons before World War I
halted county cricket, Blythe headed the first-class bowling averages but was seldom as good on unhelpful pitches as in the 1900s, perhaps because his much faster ball was becoming too difficult for him to bowl. However, given a pitch to help him he was further ahead of any other left-arm spinner than ever, and in the remarkably wet summer of 1912 he took 55 more wickets in the County Championship than the next best bowler (George Dennett
).
In the Reliance ICC Test Player Bowling Rankings , he was:
ist, Blythe suffered from epilepsy
yet enlisted as a soldier in the British Army
when the war broke out in 1914. He soon announced he would be playing no more first-class cricket. Blythe joined the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
. Sergeant Blythe was serving with the 12th (S) Battalion when he was killed by random shell-fire on the railway between Pimmern and Forest Hall near Passchendaele
on 8 November 1917. Blythe is buried in the Oxford Road CWGC Cemetery
in Belgium
.
In 2009, when the England cricket team visited the Flanders war graves, a "stone cricket ball was laid at the grave of England and Kent bowler Colin Blythe, who died at Passchendaele." "It was a deeply moving and humbling experience," said captain Andrew Strauss
.
Left-arm orthodox spin
Left-arm orthodox spin is a type of bowling in the sport of cricket.Left-arm orthodox spin is bowled by a left arm bowler using the fingers to spin the ball from right to left of the cricket pitch...
who is regarded as one of the finest bowlers of the period between 1900 and 1914 - sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age" of cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
.
Career
Blythe first played for Kent in 1899, and in a stunning start took a wicket with his very first ball in first-class cricket. From then on, he was firmly established in the Kent eleven, and with 100 wickets in his first full season showed exceptional talent. An abnormally dry summer with unfavourable wickets in 1901 gave him what turned out to be his poorest record in first-class cricket in England; though, with RhodesWilfred Rhodes
Wilfred Rhodes was an English professional cricketer who played 58 Test matches for England between 1899 and 1930. In Tests, Rhodes took 127 wickets in and scored 2,325 runs, becoming the first Englishman to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in Test matches...
not permitted by the Yorkshire committee to tour Australia, Blythe surprisingly went in his place but did not prove a totally adequate substitute. On a crumbling wicket at the SCG he proved below his best and Victor Trumper
Victor Trumper
Victor Thomas Trumper was an Australian cricketer known as the most stylish and versatile batsman of the Golden Age of cricket, capable of playing match-winning innings on wet wickets his contemporaries found unplayable. Archie MacLaren said of him, "Compared to Victor I was a cab-horse to a Derby...
's hitting mastered him very quickly. However, in the very wet summers of 1902 and 1903 Blythe became one of the leading wicket-takers in county cricket and the undisputed leader of the second-strongest (after Yorkshire) bowling attack in the country. By this time, he had shown himself an exceptionally skillful bowler with the most deceptive flight of any spinner in county cricket. This skillful flight and ability to bowl, without change of action, a much faster ball that went with his arm (that is, from off to leg stump instead of from leg to off) allowed him to be successful even on dry and true pitches (as he showed against a strong Middlesex side at Tonbridge in 1903). On sticky or even slightly crumbled pitches, Blythe was almost always unplayable, and he was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1904.
In 1905, with fast bowler Arthur Fielder
Arthur Fielder
Arthur Fielder was the leading fast bowler in English cricket for the decade before World War I and one of the key contributors to Kent's four County Championship successes between 1906 and 1913.In some ways the founder of modern fast bowling, Fielder was the first fast bowler to rely on swing...
, losing form, Blythe was kept extremely busy on the many hard pitches and was thus more expensive than in any other year apart from 1901. Injury in 1906 handicapped him further, but on the rock-hard wickets of that exceptionally dry summer in the Home Counties
Home Counties
The home counties is a term which refers to the counties of South East England and the East of England which border London, but do not include the capital city itself...
he and Fielder bowled so well in July and August that Kent won their first County Championship with eleven successive victories.
In 1907, Blythe, though aided by a summer of extremely favourable pitches, moved onto the international stage by taking 26 wickets in three Tests
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
against South Africa, including 15 for 99 in the second Test at Headingley
Headingley Stadium
Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....
- not bettered in England until the extraordinary deeds of Jim Laker
Jim Laker
James "Jim" Charles Laker was a cricketer who played for England in the 1950s, known for "Laker's match" in 1956 at Old Trafford, when he took nineteen wickets in England's victory against Australia...
in 1956. Though the pitch and the appalling quality of the opposing batting make this much less of a feat, his 17 for 48 (10 for 30 and 7 for 18) against Northamptonshire in a day on 1 June 1907 still stands as the best bowling analysis in the County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
. It is also the most wickets any bowler has ever taken in a single day's cricket (since equalled by Hedley Verity
Hedley Verity
Hedley Verity was a professional cricketer who played first-class cricket for Yorkshire and England between 1930 and 1939. A slow left arm orthodox bowler, he took 1,956 wickets in first-class cricket at an average of 14.90 and in 40 Tests he took 144 wickets at an average of 24.37...
and Tom Goddard
Tom Goddard
Tom Goddard was the fifth highest wicket taker in first-class cricket....
).
In late 1908, Blythe's amazingly imaginative skill reached perhaps its highest point ever: in a period of hot weather and dry pitches Blythe, without the aid of Fielder, still won match after match: he showed that, no matter how well set a batsman looked, he was capable of deceiving them and gaining vital wickets. His ability to relish the challenge of bowling to batsmen who were capable of hitting large scores very rapidly was well-known, and frequently Blythe's skill rewarded him: his duel with Jack Hobbs
Jack Hobbs
Sir John Berry "Jack" Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches from 1908 to 1930....
at Blackheath in 1908 is regarded as some of the highest-standard county cricket ever played.
In 1909, again aided by many rain-affected pitches, Blythe took over 200 wickets and at Edgbaston
Edgbaston Cricket Ground
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...
, took 11 wickets to win the First Test against Australia. He also took nine wickets in an innings against Leicestershire and Northamptonshire - though the standard of batting makes these less noteworthy efforts. However, later Tests of that series suggested Blythe was starting to lose his skill on good pitches, a fact borne out in 1911, when his average of 19 runs a wicket in an exceptionally dry summer would have been much higher but for a few deadly performances when pitches were exceedingly helpful.
In his last three seasons before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
halted county cricket, Blythe headed the first-class bowling averages but was seldom as good on unhelpful pitches as in the 1900s, perhaps because his much faster ball was becoming too difficult for him to bowl. However, given a pitch to help him he was further ahead of any other left-arm spinner than ever, and in the remarkably wet summer of 1912 he took 55 more wickets in the County Championship than the next best bowler (George Dennett
George Dennett
George Dennett was a left arm spinner for Gloucestershire between 1903 and 1926, and from his figures could be considered one of the best bowlers never to play Test cricket...
).
In the Reliance ICC Test Player Bowling Rankings , he was:
- Highest Bowling Rating - 843 on 11 March 1910 (v South Africa, Cape Town, 5th Test)
- Highest Bowling Ranking - 1st on 29 July 1907 (v South Africa, Headingley, 2nd Test)
Personality and death
Regarded as a sensitive and artistic person, and a talented violinViolin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist, Blythe suffered from epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
yet enlisted as a soldier in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
when the war broke out in 1914. He soon announced he would be playing no more first-class cricket. Blythe joined the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry was a regiment of the British Army. It officially existed from 1881 to 1968, but its predecessors go back to 1755. The regiment's traditions and history are now maintained by The Rifles.-The 51st Foot:...
. Sergeant Blythe was serving with the 12th (S) Battalion when he was killed by random shell-fire on the railway between Pimmern and Forest Hall near Passchendaele
Passendale
Passendale or Passchendaele is a rural Belgian village in the Zonnebeke municipality of West Flanders province...
on 8 November 1917. Blythe is buried in the Oxford Road CWGC Cemetery
Oxford Road Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery
Oxford Road Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of the First World War located near Ypres in Belgium on the Western Front....
in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
In 2009, when the England cricket team visited the Flanders war graves, a "stone cricket ball was laid at the grave of England and Kent bowler Colin Blythe, who died at Passchendaele." "It was a deeply moving and humbling experience," said captain Andrew Strauss
Andrew Strauss
Andrew John Strauss, OBE is an English cricketer who plays county cricket for Middlesex County Cricket Club and is the captain of England's Test cricket team. A fluent left-handed opening batsman, Strauss favours scoring off the back foot, mostly playing cut and pull shots...
.