Ian Blackwell (England, Somerset and Chesterfield CC)
Happy Days :-)Ian is born-and-bred Chesterfield and it is said that if you were to cut him in half you'll find Chesterfield CC running through the middle of him. He is proud of his Chesterfield cricketing history and still plays when club and country allow, he broke the individual Derbyshire Premier League batting record in 2002 scoring a majestic 206 against Alvaston & Boulton.

A fierce hitter and a tidy left-arm spinner whose first first-class wicket was Steve Waugh, big-hitting Ian  was called up by England when Andrew Flintoff pulled out of the ICC Trophy in Sri Lanka in 2002. He owed that to an innate sense of timing: Blackwell whacked 28 off a Matthew Hoggard over in front of Duncan Fletcher in the County Championship earlier that season - though he didn’t know Fletcher was at the ground - and smeared a match winning 86 off 53 balls in the televised C&G Trophy semi-final the same year. He started off at Derbyshire, before moving to Somerset in 2000, an appropriate move for a man who says he bases his batting style on Ian Botham. Blackwell’s bowling is certainly developing taking 36 wickets at 37.11 in 2003 with an economy of 2.86, he has established a reputation as a retriever of lost causes with bat and ball. Despite a run of outs that left his face even redder than usual in the 2002-03 VB Series in Australia - he finished with 0, 0, 0 and 1 - he claimed a place in the 2003 World Cup squad. Season 2003 has seen Ian's continued batting maturity, bettering his high score on 3 occasions as the season progressed, beating his previous high-score of 122 with scores of 147, 189 and 247*. He completed the season with 1,160 runs at an average of 50.63 and was chosen to tour Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with England that winter. Ian took over as Captain of Somerset during the 2005 season seeing them to victory in the 3rd season the Twenty20 competition and also walking off with the 2nd Sky Sports SIX hitting title with a mammoth 45 sixes in one-day competitions. An perceived unwillingness to adhere to England squad's strict fitness regime meant that he spent much of the following two years in the wilderness, but his appointment as Somerset captain heralded a new responsible outlook, and a recall to the England one-day squad for the tour of Pakistan at the end of 2005 thanks to an injury to Ashley Giles gives him another chance to impress. His Test debut and only test appearance to date came in India, but he didn't do himself justice in conditions suited to India, the renowned masters of spin, making only 4 runs in his only innings.

(updated to include 2005 season and tour of India - 16/04/06)

Courtesy of cricinfo (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9117.html)

Career Statistics:

Batting and fielding averages
class  mat  inns  no  runs  hs  ave  bf  sr  100  50  4s  6s  ct  st
Tests 1 1 0 4 4 4.00 16 25.00 0 0 0 0 0 0
ODIs 34 29 2 403   82 14.92 465 86.66   0   1 38 9 8   0
First-class 113 175   13 6280   247* 38.76         16   29       45   0
List A 191 174 15 4252   134* 26.74         3 25       47   0
Twenty-20   21 21 4 354 82 20.82 262 135.11   0 1       8   0

 
 Bowling averages
class  mat  balls  runs  wkts  bbi  bbm  ave  econ  sr  4  5  10
Tests 1 114 71 0 - - - 3.73 - 0 0 0
ODIs 34 1230 877 24   3/26   3/26 36.54 4.27 51.25   0   0   0
First-class 113 17053 8099 185   7/90    43.77 2.84 92.17      7   0
List A 191 6338 5094 141 5/26 5/26 36.12 4.82 44.95   2 1   0
Twenty-20 21 398 474 18 4/26 4/26 26.33 7.14 22.11 1   0   0

 
 Career statistics
StatsGuru One-Day Internationals filter
Test India v England at Nagpur - Mar 1-5, 2006 scorecard
ODI debut  England v Zimbabwe at Colombo (RPS) - Sep 18, 2002 scorecard
Last ODI  India v England at Indore (MPCA) - Apr 15, 2006 scorecard
First-class span  1997 - 2005/6
List A span  1997 - 2005/06
Twenty-20 span  2003 - 2005