Rayner John Blitz (born 25 March 1968 at

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

), was a

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 five first-class matches and one

List A 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 ...

match for

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

in 1986. A diminutive wicketkeeper and right-handed batsman who had played for

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

's second eleven in 1985, Blitz was signed to cover for an injury to Trevor Gard, Somerset's regular wicketkeeper. He took eight catches in his five games and played for Somerset's second eleven across the summer. But the county was looking for a wicketkeeper who could make reliable runs as the long-term successor to Gard, and signed

Neil Burns Neil David Burns (born 19 September 1965) is a former English cricketer who played as a wicketkeeper/batsman at First-class and List A level for various clubs but spent the majority of his career at Leicestershire and Somerset. Burns was b ...

from Essex for the 1987 season. Blitz was released by Somerset at the end of the 1986 season. Blitz did not play first-class cricket again, though he played for

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 ...

's second eleven and for

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

in the

Minor Counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blitz, Rayner 1968 births Living people English cricketers Somerset cricketers Dorset cricketers Sportspeople from Watford Cricketers from Hertfordshire