On Wednesday, he was back at Hove, reflecting on a year in which his best friend died under a Tube train while fleeing the police.
If Tom Maynard’s death and the subsequent revelation the 23-year-old had been a “habitual” cocaine user was a shock to cricket, it was a brutal and devastating blow to Hamilton-Brown, his flatmate and captain.
Inevitably, Hamilton-Brown’s cricketing life fell apart after that night in June, when he was one of the last people to see Maynard alive.
Briefly, he tried to return to the Surrey team, but quickly realised he had made a mistake, and needed time to grieve. Then, at the end of the season, the opportunity came to leave the Oval and return ‘home’ to Sussex, where he had a promising stint between 2008 and 2010.
It was not a difficult decision, especially because, as Hamilton-Brown explained, leading Surrey had been a “lonely” job even before Maynard’s death.
“I had been thinking about giving up the captaincy because it wasn’t benefiting my game for reasons I couldn’t really understand.
"Captaining a big club was a tough ask and it became a lonely job. I felt very lonely and vulnerable at times and it impacted on me as a person. I really wasn’t enjoying it so when Tom died, it confirmed what I should do.
“I realised I needed to be in a place where I felt close to people again, where there was that love and care. I had two fantastic years at Sussex and in a funny way, it always felt like home.”
Hamilton-Brown acknowledges he should never have returned to the Surrey team last summer, but is also critical of the way their coach, Chris Adams, handled the situation.
He said: “There was no way I should have been on a cricket field, but I wanted to try it and see what I could do. I was disappointed to be brought back and dropped and brought back and left out, but ultimately I should never have played in the first place. Mentally I had a lot going on and I was not able to get myself in the place I was before the tragic incident.”
Now Hamilton-Brown wants to honour the memory of his friend. “A little part of me wants to think that I’m carrying him with me and that’s going to give you a deeper, harder drive than I’ve had before.
“I didn’t see it [the cocaine revelation] coming. It’s not going to affect the memory of my best mate who’s dead. That’s not the way I remember him or knew him.”
Sussex coach Mark Robinson says suggestions there was a ‘partying’ culture at Surrey led him to seek assurances from Hamilton-Brown.
“I always felt that with the right support and guidance around him, he could do outstanding things and in a smaller club like Sussex, we could be tighter around him and give him the support he needs,” said Robinson. “We heard all the stories about the drinking and have done what we can to find out what was true and what was fiction but the key thing is to move on.
“He has gone through a horrendous time in the past six months and it would be naïve to think there will be no backlash emotionally because there has to be some residual damage. I would love to think there wasn’t but my experience of people who have suffered deep trauma is that it doesn’t just go away.
“Rory has come here and has to buy into our code of conduct. We have said to him we do not want any surprises.”
Hamilton-Brown, meanwhile, has made significant changes in his life. He has rented a flat in Hove while he waits to sell the one he shared with Maynard in London, and lost 10 per cent of his body weight during a winter ‘boot camp’, which involved a spell at Nick Bollettieri’s Academy for tennis players and three months’ training with a group of American footballers, baseball and golfers.
“I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about England call-ups and missed out on selection for various reasons so the big deal I’ve made with myself is not to think about it any more but just to concentrate on winning games and trophies. Hopefully other things will come from that. I still have the passion but I refuse to be consumed by it any more.”
By Kate Laven
- Telegraph
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