Alexander James Blake (born 25 January 1989) is an English professional

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who plays for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

. He is a left-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

who bowls occasionally.Reid J (ed) ''2016 Kent County Cricket Club Annual'',

, pp.23–24. Blake was born in

Farnborough Farnborough may refer to: Australia * Farnborough, Queensland, a locality in the Shire of Livingstone United Kingdom * Farnborough, Hampshire, a town in the Rushmoor district of Hampshire, England ** Farnborough (Main) railway station, a railw ...

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, char ...

and attended

Hayes School Hayes School is a mixed secondary school with academy status located in the suburb of Hayes within the London Borough of Bromley. The school has approximately 1800 students, of whom 500 are in the sixth form.Leeds Metropolitan University Leeds Beckett University (LBU), formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and before that as Leeds Polytechnic, is a public university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has campuses in the city centre and Headingley. The univ ...

. Blake is known as a "brutal limited-overs batsman" and an "athletic" fielder.

Cricket career

Blake was a member of the

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Cricket Academy and played for the county at age group level before making his debut for the Kent Second XI in 2005.Hoad A (2015
Kent Cricket white ball star Alex Blake agrees new contract at club following speculation about Sussex switch
''

Kent Online KM Media Group is a multimedia company in the county of Kent, England which originated as the publisher of the Kent Messenger. The Group now produces local newspapers, radio stations and websites throughout the county. Iliffe Media acquired KM ...

'', 2015-09-09. Retrieved 2016-11-20.Teams Alex Blake played for
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-11-20.Kent Cricket Academy Scholars (archived)
Retrieved 2007-09-06. He was part of the England under-19 team which played in an invitational tri-series in January and February 2007 in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...

. Blake made four under-19

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

appearances during the tournament against Malaysia under-19s and Sri Lanka under-19s.Under-19 ODI matches played by Alex Blake
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-11-20. Blake made his

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

debut for Kent in the 2007 NatWest Pro40 against

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

in September 2007,List A matches played by Alex Blake
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-11-20. before going on to make his

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

debut for Kent against the touring

New Zealanders New Zealanders ( mi, Tāngata Aotearoa), colloquially known as Kiwis (), are people associated with New Zealand, sharing a common history, culture, and language (New Zealand English). People of various ethnicities and national origins are citiz ...

in April 2008.First-class matches played by Alex Blake
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-11-20. He broke into the County Championship side in 2010 and scored his maiden

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

century against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

in the final Championship match of the season.Kent on the brink as Yorkshire battle for title
''

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flag ...

'', 2010-09-15. Retrieved 2016-11-20.Alex Blake signs new three-year contract with Kent
''

'', 2011-02-16. Retrieved 2016-11-20. In

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

he scored three half-centuries in Twenty 20 matches,Alex Blake: Kent batsman signs new contract
''

'', 2015-09-09. Retrieved 2016-11-20. including his best score of 71

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

, scored in 30 balls against

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. Blake scored another two half-centuries in the 2015 Royal London One-Day Cup and recorded a batting average of 62 in the competition. After attracting attention from

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

,Hollis S (2015
Sussex chase Kent batsman Blake
'' The Argus'', 2015-09-08. Retrieved 2016-11-20. he was awarded a new contract at the end of the 2015 season and won Kent's One-Day Player of the Year award at the end of the season.'Coles named Kent player of the year for 2015' in Reid J (2015) ''

Op. cit. ''Op. cit.'' is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ' or ''opere citato'', meaning "the work cited" or ''in the cited work'', respectively. Overview The abbreviation is used in an endnote or footnote to refer the reader to a cited work, standing ...

'', pp.82–83.Beckenham and Bexley stars recognised at Kent cricket awards night
''

News Shopper The ''News Shopper'' titles are local newspapers published in South East London and North West Kent by Newsquest. The newsroom is in Orpington. There are five local editions: Bexley Borough, Bexley & North Kent, Bromley, Dartford & Gravesend, ...

'', 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2016-11-20. After only making one first-class appearance during 2015, Blake returned to the Kent

side during the 2016 season, making eight appearances.First-class batting and fielding in each season by Alex Blake
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-11-20. He hit three sixes from the only balls he faced to complete a Championship win against

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

in May and hit 66 not out against Surrey in the One-Day Cup, scoring a six from the penultimate ball of the match to secure the win for Kent.County Championship: Kent win after Derbyshire collapse
''

'', 2016-05-25. Retrieved 2016-11-20.One-Day Cup: Alex Blake gives Kent victory over Surrey off penultimate ball
''

'', 2016-06-05. Retrieved 2016-11-20. In January 2020, Blake signed a new white-ball contract with Kent, becoming the first homegrown player to sign such a deal with county.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blake, Alex Living people 1989 births Kent cricketers Sportspeople from Farnborough, London Cricketers from the London Borough of Bromley English cricketers Oval Invincibles cricketers