Australian, Michael Bevan, played for Yorkshire as an overseas player in 1995 and 1996.

Bevan was always known as one of the best one-day players in the world and enjoyed his time at Yorkshire with 2,823 first-class runs at 58.81 with a highest score of 160*.

An essential part of the Australian one-day outfit for a decade, especially when orchestrating calm chases in crises that often ended in last-over or last-ball heroics, he was cut from the contract list with two World Cup wins and kitbags full of highlights. He will long be remembered for his pair of sensational innings against West Indies at Sydney in 1996 and New Zealand at Melbourne in 2002, when nerveless batting and juggling of the tail secured nail-biting victories. Picking the gaps, running hard and knowing the right moment - and place - to hit a boundary were the hallmarks of his success. He was also a fine fieldsman and his left-arm wrist spin, which swung from erratic to more than useful, added to his lure and allowed him to play Tests as a batting allrounder.

Bevan enjoyed a promising start to his Test career with 82 in his debut innings and another two half-centuries in his first series against Pakistan in 1994-95, but he managed only a stop-start four-year campaign and was hindered by an inability to play the short ball at the highest level, which was strange as he had few problems with it in Australian or English domestic cricket. He never made a century, although he was twice unbeaten in the 80s when batting down the order and running out of partners against West Indies, who he upset with 15 wickets in the 1997-98 series.

Bevan made his first-class debut in 1989-90 in South Australian colours, but it was in Sydney that he began to make his greatest strides as a player, quickly assuming a regular middle-order berth in the strongest state team in the country and, aside from a poor run in 1992-93 which resulted in a brief omission, using it as a launching pad to the national team.

After making brief appearances for Tasmania in 2005-06 and 2006-07 his body was struggling and on 17 January 2007, due to injuries Bevan announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. "It got to the stage where injuries and pain were holding back my motivation, and it got to the stage where I was finding it hard to get up for matches and that was probably a pretty clear indication that it was time to move on," Bevan said. 

Apart from coaching the Chennai Superstars in the Indian Cricket League, Bevan now participates in the Beach Cricket Tri-Nations series for Australia.