Wisden overview
A classic English bits-and-pieces player - except he was born in Scotland. Hamilton is a free-hitting No. 7 or 8 batsman and a springy, if inconsistent, swing bowler who is at home on the Headingley greentops but struggles on flatter wickets, where his tendency to drag the ball wide of offstump gets punished. He made the news with a series of top-drawer allround performances for Yorkshire at the end of the 1998 season, and was Scotland's batting lynchpin in the 1999 World Cup. This earned him a place on England's tour of South Africa the following winter, but he scored a pair and failed to take a wicket in what remains his only Test, at Johannesburg, and was ruthlessly dumped. He has since been swallowed up by the pecking order. Lawrence Booth

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