Colin Bland, cricket’s first fielding superstar 1938-2018
● Colin Bland, who has died at the age of 80, was a South African cricketer who became the sport’s first superstar fielder.
He showcased his talents on one famous soggy morning at Canterbury during South Africa’s 1965 tour of England, when the Kent captain, Colin Cowdrey, persuaded him to entertain spectators deprived of play with a fielding exhibition.
Picking the ball up and throwing while running at full tilt, Bland hit the target 12 times out of 15.
“They spoilt me by giving me three stumps to aim at,” he said. “I always practised with one.”
Bland’s brilliance was no accident. Cricket practice in the 1950s tended to involve a spot of batting in the nets before repairing to the bar, but he stayed outside.
Surprised batsmen
An early Rhodesian teammate recalled: “He would throw at one stump from all angles and distances, hour after hour.”
It earned him the nickname “the Golden Eagle”, and even batsmen well aware of his abilities could be surprised.
At Lord’s in 1965, with England looking set to build a big lead, Bland ran out Ken Barrington for 91 with a pinpoint throw.
“I knew Colin was great,” said Barrington, “but he’s greater than I thought!”
Shortly afterwards, Bland repeated the dose. Jim Parks tried to protect the stumps by running between the fielder and the throw, but Bland scudded the ball under Parks’s body and uprooted the middle stump.
England’s advantage was kept to manageable proportions, and the match ended in a draw. South Africa won at Trent Bridge, then Bland helped to ensure the series win by hitting 127 in the final Test at The Oval.
Bland had given early notice of his powers in his debut Test series in 1961-62.
The New Zealand captain John Reid was enjoying a prolific season, and at Johannesburg had motored to 60 when he unfurled another well-timed shot. It looked a certain four — but, wrote RS Whitington, “diving as if to clutch a low-flying trapeze, Bland held, with both hands to his right side, a cover-drive that blazed from Reid’s bat and should, in all justice, have been a boundary”.
The batsman stood for a few seconds in disbelief before applauding.
In all, Bland played 21 Tests, his last being the first match of Australia’s 1966-67 tour, again at Johannesburg, when he badly injured his knee after crashing into the perimeter fence trying to stop a boundary. He never played international cricket again, although he continued at domestic level for a few more seasons, finishing as captain of Orange Free State in 1973-74.
Aggressive with the bat
Teammates reckoned Bland’s fielding saved between 20 and 30 runs per innings, but he was also an aggressive batsman with a Test average of 49. That included three centuries, the highest an undefeated 144 against England at Johannesburg in 1964-65.
Of Scottish descent, Kenneth Colin Bland was born in Bulawayo in 1938. He excelled in sport at Milton High School and made his first-class cricket debut at the age of 18 in 1956-57, when he topscored in both innings as Rhodesia were skittled out for 57 and 152 in Salisbury by an England touring team spearheaded by the express bowlers Frank Tyson and Peter Loader.
After briefly running a sports shop, Bland worked as a coach in South Africa, before moving to England in the 1990s and continuing to coach
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, and two sons.