Blayney Balfour Hamilton (13 June 1872 in

County Louth County Louth ( ; ga, An Lú) is a coastal county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of Meath to the south, Monaghan to the west, Armagh to the north and Down to the ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

– 16 December 1946 in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

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Cricket Archive profile
/ref>) was an Irish

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

, badminton and tennis player. A right-handed batsman and left-arm spin bowler, he played nineteen times for the

Ireland cricket team The Ireland cricket team represents all of Ireland in international cricket. The Irish Cricket Union, operating under the brand Cricket Ireland is the sport's governing body in Ireland, and organises the international team. Ireland particip ...

between 1891 and 1907,CricketEurope Stats Zone profile
including one first-class match.Profile
cricketarchive.co.uk; accessed 3 October 2015.

Cricket career

Hamilton made his debut for Ireland against

I Zingari I Zingari (from dialectalized Italian , meaning "the Gypsies"; corresponding to standard Italian ') are English and Australian amateur cricket clubs, founded in 1845 and 1888 respectively. It is the oldest and perhaps the most famous of the ' ...

in August 1891, and played twice more against the same opponents in July the following year. In September 1892, he went on the Irish team's tour of North America, first playing against

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

at the

Toronto Cricket Club The Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club is a private sport and social club located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The club offers a variety of sporting and social programs including aquatics, cricket, croquet, curling, figure skating, fitne ...

, a match in which he took 5/48, his first five-

wicket In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

haul. This was followed by a match against All New York on

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

in which he scored 80 in the Irish first

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is ...

, his top score for Ireland. This was followed by a three match series against

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

at Manheim. The series was drawn 1–1, and Hamilton had a good series with the ball, taking eighteen wickets in all, including 6/64 in the Philadelphian first innings of the second match, his best bowling figures for Ireland at that time. The series was notable as the debut series of Bart King, widely regarded as the greatest American cricketer of all time. The following year saw matches against I Zingari, the

Combined Services The Combined Services cricket team represents the British Armed Forces. The team played at first-class level in England for more than forty years in the mid-twentieth century. Their first first-class match was against Gentlemen of England at L ...

and Surrey, amongst others. He scored 60

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

in the first innings of the match against Surrey at

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

, his second and final half-

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial ...

for Ireland. The following year, he took twelve wickets in a match against I Zingari, the first time he took more than ten wickets in a match, and his figures of 6/33 in the first innings were his best for Ireland. His cricketing career began to wind down at this point, with a match against

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a few days after the I Zingari match, one match against the MCC in 1895, and matches against the MCC and I Zingari in 1896. He again took ten wickets in a match against the MCC in the 1896 match. He did come back to the Irish team on two occasions however, playing against South Africa in June 1901 after an almost five-year absence from the team, and again against South Africa in August 1907 after a more than six-year gap. His final match for Ireland was also his only first-class match.

Statistics

In all matches for Ireland, Hamilton scored 490 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 18.85 and took 95 wickets at an

of 15.12. He scored two half-centuries, took

five wickets in an innings In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Taki ...

seven times and took

ten wickets in a match In cricket, a ten-wicket haul occurs when a bowler takes ten wickets in either a single innings or across both innings of a two-innings match. The phrase ten wickets in a match is also used. Taking ten wickets in a match at Lord's earns the bow ...

twice.

Badminton career

Blayney born in Dublin won nine Irish Open titles from 1902-1908.

Other sports

Hamilton also represented Ireland at

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shootin ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...

Family

Blayney came from a famous sporting playing family. His three older brothers all excelled at sports; William Drummond Hamilton represented Ireland at cricket and tennis,

Willoughby Hamilton Willoughby Hamilton (born as James Willoughby Hamilton; 9 December 1864 – 27 September 1943) was a co-world No. 1 Irish male tennis player, a footballer and international badminton player. Tennis career Hamilton played his first tournam ...

was world ranked number one at tennis at one time and Francis Cole Lowry Hamilton played cricket for Ireland. In addition three of Blayney's children were badminton internationals (

Arthur Hamilton Arthur Hamilton Stern (born October 22, 1926),Stern, Arthur “Art”
''Mar-Ken ...

and

Mavis Hamilton Mavis Henrietta Irene Hamilton married name Mavis Macnaughton (1911–1958), was a female Irish badminton international. Badminton career Mavis born in 1911 won three Scottish Open titles (including two singles) and four Irish Open titles (th ...

References

External links

CricketEurope Stats Zone profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Blayney Irish male badminton players Irish cricketers Irish male field hockey players Irish male tennis players Sportspeople from County Louth 1872 births 1946 deaths 19th-century Irish people 19th-century male tennis players Ireland international men's field hockey players Hamilton family (Ireland)