Former Yorkshire player Gavin Hamilton has been named Scotland's cricket captain. Congrats are in order.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/counties/scotland/8028461.stm

No doubt others, like me, have wondered whether, in the years since his thoroughly sad "yips" experience, Gavin has ever quietly practised a few balls in the nets, either alone or with a colleague. It was the coincidence of Gilzean's post and the fact that we were just playing Worcestershire, that led me to check a vague recollection I had of the great England and Worcs. spinner, Roland Jenkins.

"Roly" was a somewhat complex guy (albeit with a fine sense of humour), worrying each day about the stock market (how many professionals did that?) and what to do about not only the day's play, but tomorrow's as well. Stephen Chalke's wonderful book, "Runs in the Memory", confirmed what I'd half-remembered. It's in the chapter on Worcs. v Yorks. (July '56), but actually relates to an incident when the former were playing Scotland (shades of Hamilton again). "....he sits down in the middle of the pitch, tears streaming down his face. 'I can't bowl any more', he wails. He goes home on the train with the 12th man,and he does not play for a month."

By the way, although I'm not one to dislike the amateurs of old as a group (if only we had Bill Edrich, Peter May and Colin Cowdrey to face Australia), there's no doubt that some of them (including both the talented and untalented) were a pain in the butt. When Roly Jenkins wrote a thoughtful magazine article on spin bowling, R.W.V. Robins(a good and adventurous player, capt. of England and Middlesex, but very "establishment") said "That was a very good article you wrote, Jemkins. Who wrote it for you?" "I wrote it myself, sir. Who read it for you?"

I was listening on the radio the other morning to the memorial service to mark the departure of British Troops from Iraq. As a mark of tribute the names of everyone who had died were read out and I was genuinely shocked to realise that the names of the soldiers were given a simple surname while the dead officers were afforded the privilege of initials. It was subsequently explained that it remains an Army convention to address the ranks by surname but to afford initials to Officers - in much the same way that professional cricketers were differentiated from the gentlemen players by their initials. It seemed strange in these more egalitarian days that the army should persist with such ridiculous snobbery - even beyond death.

He was always one of my favourite players and was one of the stars in Yorkshire's last Championship season. The rot seemed to set in when his form fell away and he got the bowling 'yips.'

An interesting point to note

Former Yorkshire players now captaining Scotland (Hamilton) and Pakistan (Younus) and we have also had ex players captaining New Zealand (Fleming), India (Tendulkar), West Indies (Richardson), England (Vaughan).

Have any of our Aussies ever captained their country (Martyn?) and have we ever had a South African skipper in our ranks?

I don't suspect we will have a Bangaldeshi or Zimbabwean for quite some time!

Frank Mitchell of Yorkshire and England captained South Africa.

Damien Martyn captained Australia A (and Western Australia, of course). I seem to recall him captaining the Australia U19 side too, but I don't think he ever captained the test team.
I suppose Ballance might at some point be a candidate to lead Zimbabwe.