Picture by: Matthew Lewis/SWPix.com Gavin Hamilton bowling for Yorkshire.
If Dom Bess, or George Hill, or Matthew Revis repeat the heroics of Gavin Hamilton in 1998 when Yorkshire face Glamorgan at Cardiff this weekend, they will have a superb chance of starting the 2026 summer in the perfect way.
Some 28 years ago, the county’s current general manager of cricket showed just why he played 51 internationals across all formats for both Scotland and England with an all-round performance for the ages.
In late August 1998, Yorkshire won this County Championship fixture in question by 114 runs.
It was three months before Hamilton made his international debut – for England against South Africa in a Johannesburg Test Match – alongside batting debutants Michael Vaughan and Chris Adams.
And he hit 79 from the lower middle order in the first innings as Yorkshire totalled 306 all out before claiming 5-69 from 15.5 overs of seam as the hosts were bowled out for 266 in reply.
In the second innings, Hamilton’s 70 was the standout performance in 296 all out, setting up a Glamorgan victory target of 337.
And they were bowled out for 222, with Hamilton – then aged 23 – claiming 5-43 from 15 overs.
Hamilton recalled: “It was 1997, 98, 99 and 2000, so four years which were sort of the purple patch of my career, really, I would say.
“But particularly, 1998, I went through a five or six-week period where I couldn’t do anything wrong. And that game was right in the middle of it.
“I was picking up five-fors here and there and getting seventies and eighties at six, seven, eight and nine.
“We won that game really well at Cardiff, didn’t we.
“But we were struggling in the first innings (Hamilton came in at number seven, 82-5).
“I got my 70-odd and Ryan Sidebottom got 50 as well, and all of a sudden we were back in the game.
“To be honest, you get caught in the moment at the time. I did a bit of press afterwards and then got a call from the chief exec, saying, ‘Well done’.
“It took me a week or so for it to really sink in how big a performance it was.
“And when people bring it up now, it’s a game I’m very proud of. It was a great memory and a really good time in my career. We had a great side, too.”
That win on Welsh soil was one of nine for Yorkshire in that summer’s Championship, them finishing third behind Lancashire in second and champions Leicestershire.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Gavin Hamilton is now Yorkshire’s general manager of cricket.
In 1999, they finished sixth, third in 2000 before winning the title in 2001.
“It had been a funny time for us,” recalled Hamilton. “We didn’t do anything in the early nineties, then mid-nineties when Darren Lehmann came in you could feel things shaping and changing.
“We were getting into more one-day semi-finals – although we couldn’t get past Gloucestershire and Lancashire – and we were competing in the Championship.
“Then, in 2001 and 2002, it all came together for us.”
David Byas captained Yorkshire at the time. He led them in Hamilton’s game at Cardiff and was still at the helm for the 2001 triumph.
“He was a very strong captain, a good captain,” said Hamilton.
“He inherited a growing side. There were eight or nine of us who had played in the Academy together. We were well-knitted, and we grew even more under him.
“We had a good balance, with Martyn Moxon also there as a senior player, Richard Blakey, David as captain, and obviously Darren.
“The rest of us were 22, 23-year-olds. Vaughany was a part of that as well.”
And of Aussie star Lehmann, Yorkshire’s greatest ever overseas player, Hamilton added: “He came over to us in 1997 as a relatively unknown player.
“I mean, he’d obviously done very well in Sheffield Shield cricket, but he was more unknown on the international stage. He’d only debuted for Australia the year before and hadn’t made his Test debut yet.
“We’d had a couple of big international players previously, the likes of Michael Bevan and obviously Sachin.
“I seem to remember David Byas actually didn’t pick him in the first game of ’97, a B&H game away against Lancs.
“But then, he got in the side for the next game, and it only took two or three games for us to go, ‘Do you know what, we have something really special here’.
“It wasn’t just on the field, it was his confidence off the field, installing that ‘we can win from any sort of situation’ mentality into you.
“He came in at such a good time as well with what I said about having a lot of young players around at the time.
“He was such a good person, and he just shaped the culture of what Yorkshire turned into over that next five or six-year period.”
On the Yorkshire website, we will be running bygones pieces through the summer. We will have nine pieces, one linked to every Rothesay County Championship opponent but not one for every match.