Cricket Career
Henry was educated at Sunningdale School and Eton College and played cricket at both. He was wicket-keeper for Eton (1955-57) and had an exceptional career as a schoolboy cricketer. In 1955, playing against Harrow at Lord's, he was the third Eton batsman dismissed in a hat trick taken by Harrow bowler Rex Neame. In 1956 Blofeld was one of only three batsmen for Public Schools to score a century against Combined Services (the others being Peter May and Colin Cowdrey) and he was given the Cricket Society's award for the most promising young player of the season. Appointed Eton captain in his final year at school in 1957, Blofeld suffered a very serious accident, when he was hit by a bus while riding a bicycle to the Eton cricket ground, remaining unconscious for 28 days.
Although his injuries curtailed his subsequent cricketing career, he did go on to play 16 first-class matches for Cambridge University during 1958 and 1959. The 1958 side was skippered by future England captain Ted Dexter and his first victim behind the stumps, on his debut for Cambridge against Kent, was also another future England captain, Colin Cowdrey, whom he caught off Dexter's bowling. He was unable to obtain a regular place in the side as a wicket keeper and only played in that position when first choice stumper Chris Howland was unavailable. Of the 16 games that he played for Cambridge (5 in 1958 and 11 in 1959), he only kept wicket in four of them. During 1959 he played in half of the University fixtures, including the Varsity Match against Oxford, where he won his Blue "as an opening batsman of sorts… the worst Blue awarded since the war" according to Blofeld himself. Fittingly he made his only first class century against the MCC at Lords in July 1959, in his penultimate game for Cambridge. He attended King's College, Cambridge but left after two years and did not receive his degree.
In his only match for Free Foresters, against Cambridge University in 1960, he kept wicket and ironically his very last first class victim was his nemesis Chris Howland, who was also Cambridge skipper that year. He also played just one Gillette Cup match for a minor county, Norfolk against Hampshire in 1965 under the captaincy of Bill Edrich, who was 49 years old at the time. Playing as an opening batsman, he top scored for his side with 60.
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