John Douglas Jeremy Bluett (29 May 1930 – 23 August 2019) was an English amateur

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 played two

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 ...

matches 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 ...

in 1950. Bluett was born at

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

in London, and was educated at Cranbrook School, Kent, captaining the side in his final year when he

averaged In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean ( ) or arithmetic average, or just the ''mean'' or the ''average'' (when the context is clear), is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the count of numbers in the collection. The colle ...

almost 60 runs per innings.Deaths in 2019, ''Kent County Cricket Club Annual 2020'', p.223. Canterbury:

.Public school cricket in 1948, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 1948, p.678.
Available online
Retrieved 7 August 2020.) '' Wisden'' described his batting during 1948 as "splendid" and "consistent" and he played for Southern Schools at

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

in 1948, was twelfth man for the Public Schools against a Services side, and made his Second XI debut for Kent the same year. During his

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

serving in the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

between 1948 and 1950, Bluett played 10 times for the Second XI in the

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 ...

.John Bluett
CricketArchive. Retrieved 7 August 2020. Good batting performances featuring centuries against Sussex Second XI and

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

in 1950 saw him called into the First XI and he made his senior debut against

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

in the

1950 County Championship The 1950 County Championship was the 51st officially organised running of the County Championship. Lancashire and Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south ...

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Roc ...

. He played again in Kent's following match against

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

at Loughborough, but scored only ten runs in the two innings in which he batted and played no more first-class cricket. In local cricket, Bluett played for

Bromley Cricket Club Bromley Cricket Club was one of the strongest English cricket clubs in the mid-18th century when its team was led by Robert Colchin a.k.a. "Long Robin". Earliest mentions Cricket almost certainly originated in Kent and Sussex so it must have bee ...

and was capped by the

Club Cricket Conference Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...

in 1954, playing nine times for the CCC side, including against the touring Indian side in 1959.Club Cricket Conference Numbered Caps List
Club Cricket Conference. Retrieved 2 April 2017. He made five more Second XI appearances for Kent, the last in 1958, and played for a variety of amateur sides, including the

Forty Club The Forty Club (XL) is an English cricket club, established by Henry Grierson in 1936 and playing its first matches in 1937. Grierson's original intention was to enable good players to enjoy cricket into middle age. In a letter to a prospective ...

, Yellowhammers,

Incogniti The Incogniti cricket club was founded in 1861. It claims to be the third oldest "wandering" cricket club – a nomadic cricket club without its own home ground – after I Zingari and Free Foresters (founded in 1845 and 1856 respectively). How ...

and Band of Brothers. He also played

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

for

. Bluett worked on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

and was the director of a timber broking company. He served on the Kent General Committee between 1977 and 1979, and ran the junior section of Band of Brothers for a time. Two of his sons played cricket for Bromley. He died in August 2019 at the Princess Royal University Hospital in

Orpington Orpington is a town and area in south east London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is 13.4 miles (21.6 km) south east of Charing Cross. On the south-eastern edge of the Greater London Built-up Area, it is south of St Ma ...

aged 89.John Bluett

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 ...

. Retrieved 7 August 2020.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bluett, John 1930 births 2019 deaths Sportspeople from Kensington People educated at Cranbrook School, Kent English cricketers Kent cricketers