Blayney Balfour Hamilton (13 June 1872 in

County Louth County Louth ( ; ) is a coastal Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of County Meath, Meath to the ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

– 16 December 1946 in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

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Cricket Archive profile
/ref>) was an Irish

cricketer Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

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

Ireland cricket team The Ireland men's cricket team represents All-Ireland in international cricket. The Irish Cricket Union, operating under the brand Cricket Ireland, is the sport's governing body in Ireland, and they organise the international team. The team ha ...

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

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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 has facilities for sports including aquatics, cricket, croquet, curling, figure skating, fitness classes, lawn bowling ...

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

wicket In the sport of cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is either of the two sets of three Stump (cricket), stumps and two Bail (cricket), bails at each end of the Cricket pitch, pitch. The Fielding (cricket), fielding team's playe ...

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

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

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). In cricket and rounders, "innings" is ...

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

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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 John Barton "Bart" King (October 19, 1873 – October 17, 1965) was an American cricketer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. King was part of the Philadelphia team that played from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak ...

, 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 Lo ...

and

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, amongst others. He scored 60

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

in the first innings of the match against Surrey at

The Oval The Oval, currently named 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 sinc ...

, his second and final half-

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. 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. ...

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 colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

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 batter. Taking ...

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 Irish Open may refer to: *Irish Open (golf), a golf tournament on the European Tour ** Irish Senior Open, a golf tournament on the European Seniors Tour **Ladies Irish Open, a golf tournament on the Ladies European Tour * Irish Open (darts), annua ...

titles from 1902-1908.

Other sports

Hamilton also represented Ireland at

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

and

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

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 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 (October 22, 1926 – May 20, 2025) was an American songwriter. He is best known for the song " Cry Me a River", first published in 1953 and recorded by Julie London and numerous other artists. Life and career Arthur "Ar ...

, Willoughby Hamilton and Mavis Hamilton).

References

External links

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