Tony Blain - Age, Career Info & Stats

Introduction of Tony Blain: Many of the New Zealand-born youngsters born in the 1960’s who aspired to be great cricketers had to face a field of terse competition in the domain of national team selection, because they had to face up to the challenge of consistently equaling the likes of Martin Crowe and Richard Hadlee, the stalwart stars of the 1980’s Black Caps, in both form and craft, in order to secure a place.

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Batting And Fielding Averages Of Tony Blain

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	11	20	3	456	78	26.82	1201	37.96	0	2	62	4	19	2
ODIs	38	38	11	442	49*	16.37	662	66.76	0	0	27	4	37	1
First-class	118	199	30	5749	161	34.01			8	32			210	26
List A	110	102	22	1726	70	21.57			0	6			108	16

Many players received their international calling cards too late, despite good first-class performance and form. Moreover, there was yet another host of talented cricketers who secured their place in the national squad fair and square but had their career truncated by the sheer number of talented players available in the pool, and some veterans, who hogged the first team even though the youngsters were equally skilled.

Tony Blain is perhaps the level best example of this crisis. A right-handed batsman and wicketkeeper who had the potential to become a staple best, he instead suffered the misfortune of being deemed just good enough to be a stand-in for top-tier players. Throughout almost all of his international cricketing career, Tony Blain had to bear the burden of being the perpetual understudy – talented and promising, yet stifled away from the talent and the promise. He was a stand-in for Ian Smith in the late ’80s, and again a stand-in for Adam Craig Perrone till the mid-’90s.

This gave him very little in terms of an opportunity to prove his mettle, and he put out a decent performance with what little passage he got. In the 11 Test innings he played as a batsman, he had a batting average of 26.82 and bagged two half-centuries. As a wicketkeeper, he actuated 19 catches and two stumpings in the same 11 Test matches. He also appeared in 38 ODI matches, with 442 total runs, 37 catches taken, and a stumping.

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