IMAGINE turning up at work one day and discovering that you were suddenly incapable of doing your job. Such is the lot of sportsmen who suffer from the yips, among them Gavin Hamilton, the former England all-rounder released by Yorkshire at the end of last season and who signed for Durham last week. Yesterday he was selected by his native Scotland for the ICC Six Nations Challenge in Dubai next month.

Two years ago Hamilton had felt in the best form of his life in pre-season training with Yorkshire. Then, brought on to bowl his right-arm seamers in the first game of the season against Bradford/Leeds UCCE, he could not make the damn thing go straight. “I started off by sliding a couple down the off side, then a couple went down the leg,” he said. “As it went one way, I’d try to make a minor adjustment, but it would go miles in the opposite direction.

“In the next game, against Surrey, the problem started to snowball. The batsman felt 60 yards away and the ball was like a feather that I couldn’t control. I knew something was wrong.”

The next two seasons were an agonising tale of introspection, confidence crises and so much technical analysis that bowling became anything but a natural skill. He played in only two county championship matches in 2002 and was called on only once in 2003, as a batsman, before his release.

“Walking away from the game would have been the easy option after what I’ve been through,” Hamilton said. “But I’m 29 — I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d done that. Now I’ve got another chance at Durham and I can’t wait to get going.”

The yips, characterised by involuntary motion at the point of execution, has afflicted performers in a range of sports, but it continues to confound psychologists. Bernhard Langer and Tom Watson are two of many golfers who suddenly found themselves unable to putt. Eric Bristow’s reign as the world’s leading darts player in the 1980s ended abruptly when he “woke up one morning and couldn’t let the dart go”.

Several cricketers have been affected, notably left-arm spinners. Keith Medlycott’s career did not recover after the Surrey bowler got the yips on his first England tour to the Caribbean in 1989-90. More recently, Michael Davies, of Northamptonshire, was considered the brightest left-arm prospect in the country, but now, aged 27, he is a medical sales rep. According to Hamilton, several seam bowlers have suffered but left the sport without wishing to draw attention to the problem. “It’s 90 per cent psychological and, unless you’ve experienced it, you can’t appreciate what it puts you through,” Hamilton said.

Even before he was struck by the yips, Hamilton’s career had taken an unusual course. As a centre forward, he was a trainee with Arsenal when he was 16. Once he had committed himself to cricket, he represented Scotland in the 1999 World Cup, averaging more than 50 with the bat, and finished that season in the top 15 of the first-class batting and bowling averages, earning a place in England’s squad to tour South Africa.

He played his way into the team for the first Test in Johannesburg, where he made his debut alongside Michael Vaughan, but made a pair and did not take a wicket. He has not been picked since and now, after four years, he is again eligible to play for Scotland in international matches.

“A lot of people thought my problems with the yips stemmed from my experiences with England, but that’s simply not the case,” Hamilton said, his Scottish accent still distinctive despite 12 seasons with Yorkshire. “Sure, it hurt at first, but I came back and had another good season with Yorkshire, then played my part in winning the championship in 2001. It was only after that first game in 2002 that the problems began.

“There have been times in the last two years when I have bowled well in the nets, but other times when I just didn’t know what was going to happen. It’s the worst feeling, it really is. You feel like you’re letting your team-mates down, your confidence suffers and it’s a big downward spiral. It started to affect everything, on and off the pitch. I tried psychologists, hypnotists, positive-thinking courses, you name it. Nobody could pinpoint the problem.

“Last season, I took a pay cut and concentrated on my batting. I scored a stack of runs in the second team, so I was disappointed not to get more opportunities. But now I’ve got my chance with Durham, I’m batting better than ever and the bowling feels good. For the first time in ages, I’m looking forward to my cricket.”

Hamilton concedes that Durham have taken a gamble on him, but it is a chance that Martyn Moxon, formerly his coach at Yorkshire, is happy to take. “His desire to bounce back really impressed me and his enthusiasm can be infectious in the dressing-room,” Moxon said. “His bowling looks good in the nets, so we hope that he’ll be an all-rounder for us, but we won’t know until it happens in the middle.”

Durham’s faith is reward for Hamilton’s refusal to give in to a condition from which few sportsmen fully recover. There has been the occasional consideration of other careers, with a fleeting thought back to Arsenal. “I’m sure Thierry Henry’s glad that I’m keeping my cricket going,” he said with a smile. “It can be tough looking on from the bench.”

Hamilton knows this better than most.