Colin Blythe England (Eng)
Batting style	Right-handed batsman (RHB)
Bowling type	Slow left a rm orthodox (SLA)
	Tests	First-class
Matches	19	439
Runs scored	183	4,443
Batting average	9.63	9.87
100s/50s	0/0	0/5
Top score	27	82 not out
Balls bowled	4,546	103,534
Wickets	100	2,503
Bowling average	18.63	16.81
5 wickets in innings	9	218
10 wickets in match	4	71
Best bowling	8-59	10-30
Catches/stumpings	{{{test catches/stumpings}}}	2 06/0
Test debut: 13 December 1901 Last Test: 14 March 1910 Source: [1] Large sized chicken tender of England/St Georges Cross/State flag of Guernsey, 1936-1985 File links The following pages link to this file: The Ashes Arsenal F.C. Cornwall Cambridgeshire Charlton Athletic F.C. City of London London Borough of Croydon Cheshire Chelsea F.C. Devon England Essex... For more coverage of cricket, go to the Cricket portal. ... Wikipedia has no licensable picture of this cricketer. ... Cricket batsman A batsman in the sport of cricket is a player whose speciality in the game is batting. ... In the sport of cricket there are two categories of bowler: pace bowler and spin bowler. ... Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ... First-class cricket matches are those of at least three days length in which both teams have two innings each, involving either international teams or the highest division of domestic competition. ... Batting average is a statistic in both baseball and cricket measuring the performance of baseball hitters and cricket batsmen, respectively. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... An innings, or inning, is a segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably baseball and cricket – during which a side takes its turn to bat. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... In the sport of cricket, the term stump has three different meanings: part of the wicket, a manner of dismissing a batsman, and the end of the days play (stumps). Part of the wicket The stumps are three vertical posts supporting the bails to form a wicket at each... December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1901 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... March 14 is the 73rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (74th in Leap years) with 292 days remaining in the year. ... 1910 in topic: Arts Architecture- Art- Film- Literature- Music- Television Science and technology Aviation- Rail transport- Radio- Science Other topics Australia- Canada- Ireland- South Africa- Sport Births- Deaths Lists of leaders: State leaders - Religious leaders 1910 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

Colin Blythe (born May 30, 1879 in Deptford; died in World W ar I on the Forest Hall to Pimmern military railway line, Belgium on November 8, 1917) 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. May 30 is the 150th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (151st in leap years). ... 1879 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Deptford is an area of the London Borough of Lewisham, on the south bank of the River Thames in south-east London. ... November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... 1917 was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. ... In the sport of cricket, left-arm orthodox spin is the equivalent of off spin bowling, but bowled with the left hand. ... Darren Gough bowling A bowler in the sport of cricket is usually a player whose speciality is bowling. ... 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ... 1914 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Cricket is a team sport played between two groups of eleven players each. ...

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 Rhodes 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 hitti ng m astered 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 t i me, h e had shown himself an exceptionally skilful bowler with the most deceptive flight of any spinner in county cricket. This skilful flight and ability to bowl, without change of action, a much faster ball that went with his arm (that is, from off to leg st u mp 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 na med as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1904. Wilfred Rhodes (born October 29, 1877, North Moor, Kirkheaton, near Huddersfield, Yorkshire; died July 8, 1973, Branksome Park, Bournemouth) was one of the greatest cricketers of the twentieth century. ... Victor Thomas Trumper (born November 2, 1877 in Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, died June 28, 1915, Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales) was a famous Australian batsman in the sport of cricket. ... The Wisden Cricketers of the Year award is made annually in the pages of the Wisden Cricketers Almanack yearbook. ... 1904 is a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

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. The phrase Home Counties is a name for the group of English counties which border London. ...

In 1 907, Blyth e, 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 da y on June 1, 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). Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ... Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley. ... James Charles (Jim) Laker (February 9, 1922, Frizinghall, near Bradford, Yorkshire–April 23, 1986, Putney, London) was a cricketer who played for England in the 1950s. ... June 1 is the 152nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (153rd in leap years), with 213 days remaining. ... 1907 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The County Championship is the domestic first class cricket competition in the United Kingdom, mainly in England. ... Hedley Verity (18 May 1905 - 31 July 1943) was an England cricketer. ... Tom Goddard (October 1, 1900, Gloucester, England - May 22, 1966, Gloucester, England; in full Thomas William John Goddard or simply Thomas William Goddard) was the fifth highest wicket taker in first class cricket. ...

In late 1908, B l ythe's ama zingly 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 capab le 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 Bla ckheath in 1908 is regarded as some of the highest-standard county cricket ever played. Sir John Berry Jack Hobbs, KBE (born 16 December 1882 in Cambridge, England, died 21 December 1963 in Hove, Sussex) played cricket for Surrey and England. ...

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. 1909 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Edgbaston constituency shown within Birmingham Edgbaston is an area in Birmingham, England, UK. It is also a formal district, managed by its own district committee. ...

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). the world war was a time of cheese ... George Dennett (in full Edward George Dennett and sometimes erroneously just Edward Dennett) was a left arm spinner for Gloucestershire between 1903 and 1926, and one of the best bowlers never to play Test cricket. ...

Regarded as a sensitive and artistic person, and a talented violinist, Blythe enl isted as a soldier when the war broke out and soon announced he would be playing no more first-class cricket. Whilst most observers saw this decision as premature, his death in 1917 meant the cricket world never knew if Blythe could recover his former skill.

External links

• Test Bowling statistics
• First Class Bowling statistics
• Burial Place of Colin Blythe
• Cricinfo page on Colin Blythe