James Manuel Blanckenberg was a South African cricketer who played in eighteen Test matches for South Africa between 1913 and 1924. A right-arm medium pace bowler, Blanckenberg’s first-class career spanned the years 1912 to 1924. In a career interrupted by the First World War, he played for Western Provinceexcept for his final domestic season, during which he represented Natal. A nagging, accurate medium-pace bowler, Blanckenberg was most effective on the matting pitches that were prevalent in South Africa during his career. In 74 First Class appearances, he took five wickets in an innings on 21 occasions, with career best figures of 9 for 78 in a Currie Cup fixture for Western Province against Transvaal at Old Wanderers in January 1921. A useful middle/lower-order batsman, Blanckenberg's single First Class century came in December 1923 for Natal against his former team, Western Province, when he scored 171 in a fifth-wicket partnership with Dave Nourse worth 291. Blanckenberg made his Test debut against England on 13 December 1913 during England's 1913/14 tour of South Africa. Although the tourists won the series 4-0, Blanckenberg finished with nineteen wickets, his tally in the series second only to that of England's Sydney Barnes. He would go on to win eighteen caps in total for South Africa, appearing in every Test match played by South Africa from his debut until the final Test of South Africa's tour of England in 1924, during which Blanckenberg struggled on the grass wickets used in England, taking just four wickets in five Tests at an average of 102.75. It was at the end of this tour that Blanckenberg played his final First Class match, for the South Africans against CI Thornton's XI at Scarborough. Following his retirement from First Class cricket, Blanckenberg was the professional for Nelson in the Lancashire League from 1925 until 1928, for East Lancashire from 1929 until 1930, and for Bacup in 1931.
Little is known of Blanckenberg's life following his cricket career. He has long been rumoured to have been a Nazi sympathiser in the years leading up to and during the Second World War, and supposedly revealed his political stance by refusing to shake the hand of Learie Constantine. Many biographies list him as having died in West Berlin in about 1955, however this remains unverified; historian Ray Brooke believed this theory to have been disproved, and that Blanckenberg emigrated to South America.
