Alistair Edmunds Blair MBE (16 November 1904 – 20 November 1984) was an English

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 of Ceylonese descent. He was born in

British Ceylon British Ceylon ( si, බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය ලංකාව, Britānya Laṃkāva; ta, பிரித்தானிய இலங்கை, Biritthāṉiya Ilaṅkai) was the British Crown colony of present-day Sri Lanka between ...

and was educated at Radley College in England. Blair played his only

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

match for Devon against Dorset in 1922. Later, in January 1927 he made his first-class debut for the Europeans (Ceylon) against the touring Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The following month he played his only first-class match for the Up-Country XI against the same opposition and days later he represented

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

against the MCC once more. In his 3 first-class matches, Blair scored 190 runs at a batting average of 47.50, with a single half century high score of 95 *. Blair later served in World War II where he held the rank of lieutenant in the Black Watch. In 1943, he earnt a non-combatant gallantry award and was awarded with an MBE. The award was announced in '' The London Gazette'' on 9 July 1943.National archives: Blair, Alistair Edmunds
/ref> He died in Lympstone, Devon on 20 November 1984.

References

External links

Alistair Blair
at

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

Alistair Blair
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Blair, Alistair 1904 births 1984 deaths People from British Ceylon People educated at Radley College English cricketers Devon cricketers British Army personnel of World War II Black Watch officers Members of the Order of the British Empire English people of Sri Lankan descent Europeans (Ceylon) cricketers Up-Country XI cricketers British people in British Ceylon