Durham exit could end Blackwell career
Ian Blackwell's career may be over at the age of 34 after his contract was terminated a year early by Durham.
George Dobell
16-Jan-2013

Ian Blackwell could have ended his career on a high • Getty Images
Ian Blackwell's career may be over at the age of 34 after his contract
was terminated a year early by Durham.
Blackwell, who played one Test and 34 ODIs for England, recently underwent the
third bout of surgery on a long-standing shoulder injury and was
thought unlikely to be fit
for the first three or four months of the 2013 season.
Despite an
impressive first-class record - he scored over 11,000 first-class runs
at a fraction under 40 and
claimed 398 first-class wickets at 35.91 apiece - he fell out of
favour at Durham during 2012 and did not feature in their Championship
side after May.
A destructive batsman and reliable left-arm spinner, Blackwell would
surely have won more opportunities for England had he embraced the
requisite fitness
ethic. He attempted, on various occasions, to lose weight with varying
degrees of success but, eventually, temptation always got the better
of him.
Over the
last few years his increasingly rounded figure provided something of a
throwback to a more innocent age in the professional game. He was well
suited to his
sobriquet - The Blacksmith - and the county circuit will be a little
less entertaining for the news that he laid down his hammer and tongs for
the final time.
But he could play. His double-century for Somerset against
Derbyshire at Taunton in 2003 is the fastest, in terms of balls
received, ever made by an
Englishman. It occupied just 134 balls, with the second 100 coming off
only 41 deliveries. And, with his unostentatious spin, he took 43
wickets - 10 more than
any spinner had previously managed in a season for Durham - as the
county successfully defended their Championship title in 2009.
His sole Test came at Nagpur in 2006 - the game in which Alastair Cook
and Monty Panesar also made their debuts - and, though he struck a
typically
commanding 82 in his second ODI, he failed to pass 50 in any of his
other 34 matches and, at one stage in 2003, scored one run in four
successive innings
against Australia.
After making his debut for his native Derbyshire, he left the county -
largely due to a dislike of Dominic Cork - as part of a widespread
exodus and joined
Somerset in 2000. He spent nine happy seasons at a club that has
always had a soft spot for big-hitting allrounders but, struggling to fit in with Justin Langer's less romantic approach to fitness, departed for Durham
at the end of 2008.
He may reflect that his career ended on a high. Loaned out to
Warwickshire for the final few weeks of the 2012 season, he was part
of the side that clinched the
County Championship title and his last game was the CB40 final at
Lord's. A future as an umpire beckons.
George Dobell is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo