Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Full name | Robert William Blair | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Petone, New Zealand | 23 June 1932|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right-arm fast-medium | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Test debut | 6 March 1953 v South Africa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last Test | 13 March 1964 v South Africa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source: CricInfo, 3 December 2020 |
Robert William Blair (born 23 June 1932) is a former cricketer who played 19 Test matches for New Zealand.
Blair was a fast bowler who was never quite able to carry his enormous success for Wellington in the Plunket Shield over into the Test arena. In 59 matches for Wellington from 1951–52 to 1964–65 he took 330 wickets at an average of 15.16. [1] In his best season, he took 46 wickets in the five matches of 1956–57 at an average of 9.47, twice taking nine wickets in an innings. [2] The next season, he took 34 at 11.20, then in a trial match at the end of the season he took five wickets in each innings for North Island against South Island. [3] But in the series that followed a few months later in England, he took only three wickets in three Tests, at an average of 70. [4] He achieved his best Test match figures, 7 for 142, in what turned out to be his last Test, against South Africa at Auckland in 1963–64. [5]
Blair holds the record for the lowest career batting average by a Test player who scored a 50 in an innings, with 6.75. [6] His only 50 came in the first innings of the Second Test against England at Wellington in 1962–63, when he came to the wicket with the score at 96 for 7 and hit 64 not out, the top score of the innings, putting on 44 for the last wicket with Frank Cameron to take the final total to 194. [7]
In the mid-1980s, Blair joined Widnes Cricket Club, who were then part of the Manchester and District Cricket Association, as a coach. In the late 1990s, Blair was coach of the Zimbabwe domestic first class team Matabeleland that competed for the Logan Cup. He then returned for a second spell with Widnes, who had by that time joined the Cheshire County Cricket League. He now lives in Warrington, Cheshire.
In December 1953 Blair, playing for New Zealand against South Africa at Johannesburg, received news that his fiancée, Nerissa Love, had been killed in the Tangiwai railway disaster on Christmas Eve. Blair was not expected to bat when his turn came on Boxing Day, as an announcement had been made that he would take no further part in the game. In the event, however, he appeared at the crease at the fall of the ninth wicket to join Bert Sutcliffe, who had already started to walk off the field. The packed crowd stood in silence. [8] The two men added 33 for the last wicket, avoiding the follow-on, with Sutcliffe striking three sixes and Blair one from a single eight-ball over, but in the next over Blair was stumped off Hugh Tayfield. South Africa won the match by 132 runs. [9]
A book about the incident, What Are You Doing Out Here: Heroism and Distress at a Cricket Test by Norman Harris, was published in 2010. Blair wrote the foreword. [10]
In 2011 a television film about the disaster, Tangiwai: A Love Story, was made by Lippy Pictures for Television New Zealand, focusing on the love story of Bob Blair and his fiancée Nerissa Love. [11] Blair was portrayed by actor Ryan O'Kane and Nerissa Love by Rose McIver. It premiered on TV One on 14 August 2011. [12] It has since been released on DVD.
A play written and performed by Auckland actor Jonny Brugh, The Second Test, tells the story from Blair's perspective, emphasizing his commitment to continue playing with the New Zealand team. [13]
In 1986, 33 years after the Tangiwai disaster, Blair married his wife Barbara. The couple reside in England. [14]
Bert Sutcliffe was a New Zealand Test cricketer. Sutcliffe was a successful left-hand batsman. His batting achievements on tour in England in 1949, which included four fifties and a century in the Tests, earned him the accolade of being one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year. He captained New Zealand in four Tests in the early 1950s, losing three of them and drawing the other. None of Sutcliffe's 42 Tests resulted in a New Zealand victory. In 1949 Sutcliffe was named the inaugural New Zealand Sportsman of the Year, and in 2000 was named as New Zealand champion sportsperson of the decade for the 1940s.
Henry Butler Cave was a New Zealand cricketer who captained New Zealand in nine of his 19 Test matches. His Test career extended from 1949 to 1958, and he played first-class cricket from 1945 to 1959.
Frederick Theodore Badcock was a New Zealand first-class and Test cricketer. Perhaps the best all-rounder in New Zealand in the inter-war period, he played seven Test matches for New Zealand between 1930 and 1933, including New Zealand's inaugural Test in 1930. He was the first players capped by New Zealand.
Lawrence Somerville Martin Miller was a cricketer who played 13 matches of Test cricket for New Zealand between 1953 and 1958, and played Plunket Shield cricket for Central Districts and Wellington.
John Gordon Leggat was a New Zealand cricketer who played nine Test matches for New Zealand in the 1950s as an opening batsman. He was later a leading cricket administrator. His cousin Ian Leggat also played Test cricket for New Zealand.
Trevor George McMahon is a New Zealand former cricketer. He played for the New Zealand national cricket team in five Test matches as a wicket-keeper between October 1955 and February 1956, scoring seven runs in seven innings.
John Chaloner Alabaster is a former cricketer who played 21 Test matches for New Zealand between 1955 and 1972. A leg-spin bowler, he was the only New Zealander to play in each of the country's first four Test victories. In domestic cricket, he was often partnered at the crease for his provincial side Otago by his younger brother Gren, who bowled off-spin. A schoolteacher, he later served as Rector of Southland Boys' High School in Invercargill.
Robert Smith Cunis played 20 Test matches for New Zealand as a pace bowler between 1964 and 1972, and was later coach of the New Zealand national team from 1987 to 1990. His son Stephen played cricket for Canterbury between 1998 and 2006.
Alexander McKenzie Moir was a New Zealand cricketer. He played 17 Test matches for New Zealand in the 1950s as a leg-spinner and lower-order batsman.
Donald Dougald Taylor was a New Zealand cricketer who played in 3 Tests from 1947 to 1956. His nickname was "Bloke", because of his frequent use of the word.
Donald Derek Beard was a New Zealand cricketer who played in four Tests from 1952 to 1956. He was a schoolteacher and school principal.
John Edward Francis Beck was a New Zealand cricketer who played in eight Test matches between 1953 and 1956. He played Plunket Shield cricket for Wellington from 1954–55 to 1961–62.
John Trevor Sparling is a former New Zealand cricketer who played in 11 Test matches between 1958 and 1964.
Wynne Pennell Bradburn was a New Zealand cricketer who played in two Test matches against South Africa in 1964.
The New Zealand national cricket team toured South Africa from October 1953 to February 1954 and played a five match Test series against the South Africa national cricket team. South Africa won the Test series 4–0. The tour was the first by a representative New Zealand side to South Africa and the tourists embarked on their visit without having won a Test match since they had been granted full member status of the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1930.
This article describes the history of New Zealand cricket from the 1945–46 season until 1970.
This article describes the history of New Zealand cricket from the 1970–71 season until 2000.
Daniel Jason McBeath was a New Zealand cricketer who played first-class cricket between the 1917–18 and 1926–27 seasons. He was born at Malvern in the Canterbury Region in 1897.
Derwent Raoul Garrard was a New Zealand cricketer who played first-class cricket for Auckland from 1918 to 1942 and represented New Zealand in the days before New Zealand played Test cricket.
William Smith Haig was a New Zealand cricketer. He played 31 first-class matches for Otago between 1949 and 1958.