Hylton Michael ACKERMAN 1947-2009

	Player number 290 (f-c debut for Northamptonshire – 27 May 1967) Also List A #22 (debut 1 May 1968)
Birthplace	Springs, South Africa
	County Cap 1969
First-Class	98 matches, 5,182 runs @ 31.59; 4 wickets @ 25.75; 89 catches
List A	50 matches, 1,296 runs @ 30.13; 0 wickets for 9; 19 catches

Northamptonshire’s willingness to back the judgement of former County batsman Percy Davis – who spent his winters coaching at Dale College in South Africa – paid dividends when left-hander Hylton Ackerman signed for the club after scoring a century (aged only 17) for Border against Mike Smith’s MCC team in 1964-65, although national service in the Republic’s air force delayed his arrival in England until 1967. He struck up a firm friendship with Colin Milburn and they shared both a flat in Northampton and a common approach to cricket and life, hitting the ball hard at the top of the order and enjoying themselves off the field too. Ackerman recorded Northamptonshire’s first hundred in the newfangled John Player League – 115 not out against Kent at Dover in 1970 – and took a Championship double-century off Leicestershire in the same season. In 1971, despite being diagnosed with a diabetic condition, he topped 1,500 first-class runs for the second year running, including 105 against the Pakistanis at Northampton, but opted not to return for another English summer. Instead, he played on in South African domestic cricket for another decade, captaining Western Province, and then retained a close involvement in the game as coach, commentator and proud father of ‘HD’ Ackerman who gained Test honours for the Proteas in the 1990s. That accolade was denied Hylton when South Africa’s tour of Australia in 1971-72 – for which he had been selected – was cancelled for political reasons. He did, however, appear in the replacement series for a World XI alongside the likes of Gary Sobers, Sunil Gavaskar and a soon-to-be Northamptonshire star Bishan Bedi, scoring a century in the first match of the series at Brisbane. Latterly in poor health, his many cricketing friends organised a fundraising dinner for him in Cape Town in 2006.