Colin Blythe (born 30 May 1879 in Deptford; died in World War I on the Forest Hall to Pimmern military railway line, Belgium on 8 November 1917), also known as Charlie Blythe, was a Kent and England left arm spinner who is regarded as one of the finest bowlers of the period between 1900 and 1914 - sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age" of cricket.
Blythe first played for Kent in 1899, and in a stunning start took a wicket with his very first ball in first-class cricket. From then on, he was firmly established in the Kent eleven, and with 100 wickets in his first full season showed exceptional talent. An abnormally dry summer with unfavourable wickets in 1901 gave him what turned out to be his poorest record in first-class cricket in England; though, with Rhodes not permitted by the Yorkshire committee to tour Australia, Blythe surprisingly went in his place but did not prove a totally adequate substitute. On a crumbling wicket at the SCG he proved below his best and Victor Trumper's hitting mastered him very quickly. However, in the very wet summers of 1902 and 1903 Blythe became one of the leading wicket-takers in county cricket and the undisputed leader of the second-strongest (after Yorkshire) bowling attack in the country. By this time, he had shown himself an exceptionally skillful bowler with the most deceptive flight of any spinner in county cricket. This skillful flight and ability to bowl, without change of action, a much faster ball that went with his arm (that is, from off to leg stump instead of from leg to off) allowed him to be successful even on dry and true pitches (as he showed against a strong Middlesex side at Tonbridge in 1903). On sticky or even slightly crumbled pitches, Blythe was almost always unplayable, and he was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1904.