Graeme Hick
Encyclopedia
Graeme Ashley Hick MBE
(born 23 May 1966) is a Zimbabwe
an-born cricket
er who played 65 Test matches
and 120 One Day Internationals for England
. He played county cricket
for Worcestershire
for his entire English domestic career, a period of well over twenty years, and in 2008 he surpassed Graham Gooch
's record for the most matches in all forms of the game combined. He scored more than 40,000 first-class
runs, mostly from number three in the order
, and he is one of only three players to have passed 20,000 runs in List A cricket (Graham Gooch and Sachin Tendulkar
are the others) and is one of only twenty-five players to have scored 100 centuries in first-class cricket. He is the only cricketer who scored first-class triple hundreds in three different decades (1988, 1997 and 2002). Despite these achievements, he is commonly held to have underachieved in international cricket, a view based on comparison of Hick's overall first-class batting average of 52.23 vis-à-vis his Test average of 31.32.
At one time Hick's bowling was a significant force, and his off-spin claimed more than 200 first-class wickets. However, after 2001
he rarely bowled, and took only one first-class and two List A wickets; indeed, after the 2004 season
he did not bowl a single ball in either form of the game. Throughout his career he was an outstanding slip fielder
: Gooch wrote in his autobiography that his ideal slip cordon would comprise Mark Taylor
, Ian Botham
and Hick.
Hick was granted a benefit season
by Worcestershire in 1999, which raised over £345,000;
he was also awarded a testimonial
in 2006.
Hick retired from county cricket at the end of the 2008 season, to take up a coaching post at Malvern College
. For the remaining part of the season, he joined Chandigarh Lions
of the Indian Cricket League
.
(now Harare
, Zimbabwe
) into a tobacco-farming family, Hick was at first more interested in hockey
than cricket, and indeed went on to play for the national schools hockey team. He was also more of a bowler than a batsman, but in 1979 he began to make big scores regularly, averaging
185 for the school side. He suffered from a mild form of meningitis
in 1980, but he nevertheless progressed to become captain of the national Junior Schools team, and before long to play for the Senior Schools side.
Aged just 16, Hick played three minor one-day
games for Zimbabwe Colts and Zimbabwe Country Districts against Young Australia in 1982-83. He had no success with the bat, being dismissed for 0, 2 and 1, although he did bowl
Dean Jones
in the second match at Mutare
. Hick was included in the Zimbabwean
squad for the 1983 World Cup
, the youngest player ever to achieve such a status,
but was not selected to play in the tournament. The following Zimbabwean season, on 7 October 1983, Hick made his first-class
debut for Zimbabwe against Young West Indies at Harare
. Coming in at number eight in the first innings
, he hit 28 not out
to help set up a narrow three-wicket victory
. Eight days later Hick made his List A debut against the same opponents, batting one place lower still and making 16*
in a game decided (in Zimbabwe's favour) on run rate
.
On 7 December 1983, Hick took his maiden first-class wicket, bowling Sri Lanka
Test batsman Susil Fernando
while playing for Zimbabwe against a Sri Lanka Board President's XI. Four days later, Hick made his maiden first-class fifty when he scored 57 against a Sri Lanka
n XI, and in March 1984 he achieved the same in a one-day match by hitting 62* against Young India — a performance for which he was named Man of the Match for the first time.
Looking back on this period two decades later, Steve Waugh
considered that at 18 Hick was as good a player as anyone of that age in the history of cricket.
, Hick came to England on a scholarship
from the Zimbabwe Cricket Union. For Worcestershire's Second XI he was impressive: he twice took five wickets in an innings, and a prolific sequence of 195, 0, 170 and 186 gained him a first-team debut against Surrey
in the last match of the 1984 County Championship
. Worcestershire declared
in their first innings, and Hick did not get to bat, but in the second — once again coming in at nine — he made 82*, sharing in an unbroken eighth-wicket partnership
of 133 with captain Phil Neale
. He also played club cricket
for Kidderminster in the Birmingham League
. He hit 1,234 runs for the club that year, a Kidderminster record.
Hick spent the winter playing for Zimbabwe, his highest scores being 95 and 88 in separate matches against Young New Zealand. Hick's good year in 1984 encouraged him to continue playing in England,
and in the English summer that followed
, Zimbabwe toured England, and Hick played both for them and for his county. He enjoyed a successful season, ending with a batting average
of 52.70, and scoring his first century: 230 for the Zimbabweans against Oxford University
. This was to be the first of six successive English seasons in which Hick averaged more than fifty in first-class cricket.
Playing that winter in Zimbabwe, he made 309 in under seven hours in a minor match against Ireland
, the highest score ever made in any form of cricket for either Zimbabwe or its predecessor Rhodesia
.
The 1986 English season
was the first year in which Hick was notably successful in the one-day game: he hit 889 List A runs that year at an average slightly over forty. 1986 also saw the 20-year-old Hick — newly capped by Worcestershire — become the youngest player to make 2,000 first-class runs in a season,
while in 1987
, he was named as one of Wisden
's five Cricketers of the Year. He also had a highly successful season in one-day cricket as Worcestershire won the Refuge Assurance League
, passing 1,000 List A runs for the only time, averaging over seventy in such games and making a one-day career-best 172* against Devon
in the NatWest Trophy. By now Hick's career first-class average was well over sixty, and excitement about his run-scoring ability was becoming enormous.
The following summer
, Hick made a major contribution to his county's first County Championship title since 1974
. He became the first man since Glenn Turner
, and only the eighth in history, to hit a thousand first-class runs before the end of May,
with 410 of those runs coming in April alone, a record for that month until Ian Bell scored 480 in April 2005
. In the first week of May he made what remains his highest first-class score: 405* against Somerset
, and at that point the thousand seemed almost inevitable. However, Hick's next four innings totalled a mere 32, leaving him with the daunting task of making 153 runs in the last match of the month, against the touring West Indians at New Road
. Hick did it on the first day, ending 172 not out and scoring a total of 1,019 runs before the end of May. In all that season he scored a career-best aggregate of 2,713 runs including ten first-class hundreds, matching the Worcestershire record set by Glenn Turner
in 1970
.
One of these, a 79-ball knock against Surrey
in August, won the Walter Lawrence Trophy
for the fastest century of the season. To cap it all, he was also named Player of the Year by the Professional Cricketers' Association
.
In both 1987-88 and 1988-89 Hick spent his winters playing in New Zealand
for Northern Districts. He was a great success, hitting ten centuries in all and averaging 63.61 in the former season and a startling 94.46 in the latter; in one game against Auckland
he scored a first-class record 173 runs between tea and close of play. It was at this time that John Bracewell
called him a "flat-track bully", a comment which was to dog Hick throughout his England career.
Back in England, the 1989 season
when Worcestershire retained the Championship (with Hick's 26 wickets at under 20
the best return of his career) and, especially, the "batsmen's paradise" 1990 season
saw Hick continue to pile up the big scores. He scored well over 4,000 first-class runs in the two years combined and averaged 90.46 in 1990, his highest average in any English summer and overall second only to his aforementioned New Zealand season. He followed that up with a reasonably successful winter playing for Queensland
, and in March 1991 scored 91 for Worcestershire against Zimbabwe at Harare, but already the public's mind was firmly on the summer
, when he would qualify to play for England.
he opted to take the longer path of a seven-year wait to play for his newly adopted home. By the time he became eligible, public interest in his seeming destiny as a great batsman for country as well as county was intense; David Lloyd
was later to write that he doubted "any cricketer [had] ever come into the international game burdened by such impossible expectations".
Hick's Worcestershire team-mate Graham Dilley
had been in no doubt that he would succeed, perhaps ironically given what was to follow writing that Hick exerted "psychological pressure on the bowlers, like Viv Richards
or Javed Miandad
."
Hick made his first appearances as an England batsman in a three-match One Day International series against West Indies, the first being played at Edgbaston
on 23 May 1991. He made only 14 in a low-scoring game, but a few days later, in the third and final match of the series, he hit 86* and shared in a match-winning stand of 213 with Neil Fairbrother
. The stage seemed set for Hick's Test debut at Headingley
on 6 June, and Hick was even pictured on the cover of the Radio Times
.
He was given a hero's reception by the crowd as he came out to bat, but a tortured 51 minutes later he was back in the pavilion having made only six, and he could do no better in the second innings. After further innings of 0, 43, 0, 19 and 1 he was dropped before the last match of the series. Although Worcestershire did win the Benson & Hedges Cup
, in first-class cricket Hick finished with an average for the season of just 32.91, which remains his lowest in any English summer.
He then played all three Tests in New Zealand, but apart from a marathon bowling performance in the first innings at Wellington
where he and Phil Tufnell
shared 140 overs almost equally (Hick's 69-27-126-4
was to be his best in Tests), he again had little to smile about. Considerably more enjoyable for him was the 1992 World Cup
which immediately followed: England reached the final, thanks in no small part to Hick's three half-centuries. The most important of these came in the semi-final against South Africa
at the SCG
. Although this game is now more often remembered for the rain-related fiasco which left South Africa needing an impossible 22 runs from one ball, it was Hick's Man-of-the-Match-winning knock of 83 (in an innings where the second top score was 33) which made England's victory possible in the first place. He could not replicate it in the final, being lbw to Mushtaq Ahmed
for 17.
In 1992
Hick finally made a Test half-century, 51 against Pakistan
, but as with the West Indian series he was dropped before the end of the summer. This time at least he scored heavily for Worcestershire, averaging nearly seventy for his county. This domestic form, together with his ability against spin bowling
, secured Hick a place on the 1992-93 tour of India
, and in a generally disastrous tour for England (they lost two Tests by an innings and the other by eight wickets) he was one of the very few bright spots; indeed, he topped both batting and bowling averages for his country, as well as scoring 249 runs in the six ODIs. The personal highlight for Hick was his long-awaited maiden Test hundred: 178 in the third Test at Bombay
; he added another 47 in the second innings. He then scored 68 and 26 in the one-off Test against Sri Lanka
which immediately followed. For his achievements in the subcontinent
, he was named one of Indian Cricket
s five Cricketers of the Year in 1993.
Hick made 85, but in the first Ashes
Test at Old Trafford
, he was famously sledged
by Merv Hughes
, leading umpire Dickie Bird to ask him: "What has that nice Mr Hick ever done to you?" Hughes later commented that although he had been "a bit OTT with Hick", he "only sledged batsmen [he] respected".
Despite scores of 34, 22, 20 and 64, Hick — along with Mike Gatting
— was dropped after the second Test at Lord's; the decision amazed Shane Warne
.
Hick was recalled for the sixth Test at The Oval
and hit 80 and 36 in a 161-run England victory, giving him a series average of 42.66, behind only Gooch
, Atherton
and Thorpe
among England's specialist batsmen in a series in which England used 24 players.
A reasonable tour of West Indies followed, although Hick narrowly failed to make a maiden hundred against this opposition when he was dismissed for 96 in the Jamaican
Test, and did not make a fifty in five ODI innings. Then
came two short series against New Zealand and South Africa
; he played in all six Tests and reached double figures in all ten innings, although he was not particularly successful against New Zealand, with a top score of only 58. Against the South Africans, however, he averaged over sixty, making 110 in the Second Test and a match-winning 81* (at a run a ball) in England's dash to victory in the Third. He played in three of the four ODIs and failed in two of them, but made another 81 against South Africa.
The 1994-95 Ashes tour came to be known for one incident in particular. In the third Test at Sydney, England captain Mike Atherton had let it be known to his players that he intended to declare. Hick was nearing what would have been his first Ashes century, but Atherton felt he was scoring too slowly and that as a result the team were "dawdling".
He took the decision to call the players in with Hick 98 not out. Hick was surprised and hurt not to be allowed to reach his hundred: Alec Stewart wrote later that his team-mates "couldn't believe" the decision, and he felt that it "cost [England] dearly".
Atherton admitted in his autobiography that although he still felt the declaration had been justified in strictly cricketing terms, he would not have taken such a decision again.
Phil Tufnell
felt similarly, saying that while there was a match to win, "a few of [the team] were also very sorry for Hick."
Jonathan Agnew
's sympathies, however, lay with the captain, telling Atherton that his "conscience should be clear".
Hick seemed to be overcoming his disappointment over the next few days, making a match-winning 91 in a World Series Cup
ODI — a performance which lifted him to second behind only Brian Lara
in the world rankings
— and following up with 143 in a four-day game against Victoria
. But he did not get a chance to make that Ashes century: a slipped disc
ended his tour just before the fourth Test.
He never came so close to one again. Hick's injury and the declaration affair overshadowed what up to that point had been a somewhat mixed series as far as the Tests had been concerned: in his other five innings he had been dismissed cheaply three times, but he had also made 80 at Brisbane.
West Indies visited in 1995
, and Hick — an "automatic pick" for Atherton at this point in his career
— enjoyed a good summer, averaging just over 50 in the Tests with the highlights being 118* at Trent Bridge
(he had been told the previous day by Ray Illingworth
that he had a "soft centre"
) and then 96 and 51* in the final Test at The Oval
. He also averaged over 50 in the County Championship
, and took a career-best 5-18 against Leicestershire
in early July. In the Benson & Hedges Cup, he scored three hundreds in five matches as Worcestershire reached the semi-final. In that game, Hick made 109 and took two wickets, but Lancashire
won a close contest with four balls to spare.
That winter's tour was to South Africa, and Hick made a superb hundred on the first day of the first Test at Centurion Park
; Allan Donald
later conceded that "he hammered us".
He advanced his score to 141 the next day before falling lbw
to Pollock
, but appalling weather washed out the last three days of the game and the match was drawn. Hick, having reached his highest ever Test ranking of seventh,
played in all five Tests and seven ODIs on that tour, but passed fifty only twice. The 1996 World Cup
in the subcontinent immediately followed, but 85 against New Zealand was his only major contribution against top-class opposition.
, especially after making 215 for Worcestershire against the Indians in May, but it was not to be. His form completely deserted him as he could manage just 35 runs in four innings against India, and when he was dismissed cheaply twice in the first Test against Pakistan the selectors had had enough and he was dropped from both Test and ODI teams, not to be selected again for a year and a half. Back at Worcestershire, he scored unevenly: immediately after his being dropped by England he made 148 and 86 against Kent
, but he then endured a run of ten innings in all cricket without making more than 30, before hitting 54 and 106 against Gloucestershire
in the penultimate Championship game of the season.
For the first time since becoming eligible to play for England, Hick was omitted from the winter tour parties altogether, an omission particularly painful as the programme was to include not only a return to New Zealand but the first ever Tests between Zimbabwe and England. In the event Hick did play in the country, but only as part of Worcestershire's own tour; he took six wickets in their match against a Matabeleland
Invitation XI in what must have been a bittersweet experience. The 1997 English season
was the first for seven years in which Hick had no international duties to perform, and he averaged 69 in scoring over 1,500 first-class runs, the highlight being an unbeaten 303 in the final match of the season against Hampshire
, sharing in an unbroken third-wicket partnership of 438 with Tom Moody
, an English record for that wicket
and a Worcestershire record for any wicket.
Hick was recalled to England duties for the Singer-Akai Champions Trophy ODI series at Sharjah
in December 1997, and in April 1998 for just the ODI portion of the West Indies series. He played in nine games altogether, but though he got starts on several occasions he never reached fifty.
Hick began the 1998 season
slowly and was left out of the England team at the start of the year, but he responded with four hundreds in successive first-class innings in late May and early June. Although this form left him somewhat thereafter, he was nevertheless selected for the final two Tests against South Africa. A total of nine runs from three innings left his hopes of a place on the Ashes tour looking extremely shaky, but after two half-centuries in ODIs and then 107 in the one-off Test against Sri Lanka it seemed he might have done just enough. However, his century was outshone by John Crawley
's 156 in the same innings and in the end it was the Lancashire man who got the nod. Hick was left at home, to console himself with the memory of the adulation of the Worcestershire crowd: in May at New Road he had made his hundredth first-class century.
Just before the first Test, however, Hick received an emergency call-up — officially as "reinforcement" rather than a replacement — as Atherton's chronic back problem (ankylosing spondylitis
) had been causing him severe pain.
Hick ended up playing in four Tests, but he had a rather poor series overall, averaging 25, although his defiant 68 in a losing cause at Perth stuck in the memory and his 39 and 60 contributed significantly to England's 12-run win at Melbourne
(even if Dean Headley
's 6-60 was more remarked upon). In the ODIs against both Australia and Sri Lanka Hick did much better, making more than 500 runs — including a fine run of 108, 66*, 126* and 109 in successive innings — and being named England's Man of the Series.
The 1999 World Cup
was held in England, and after Hick's ODI achievements in Australia Allan Donald felt he would be the home team's danger man.
David Lloyd also "strongly fancied [Hick] to have a serious influence" on the competition, but he was frustrated by Hick's reluctance to accept a flexible batting order, only with considerable difficulty at a "frosty team meeting" getting him to agree to drop down from three when required.
Despite Hick's uneasiness over the issue, and England's general incompetence in the tournament, he averaged 53 — second only to Nasser Hussain
, the only one of his team-mates to average more than 30. Frustratingly for Hick, the series against New Zealand that followed contained no one-dayers at all, and he was picked for only the third of the four Tests, making 12 in his only innings. It was no real surprise that he was picked for only the ODI part of the winter tour to South Africa and the short ODI series in Zimbabwe which followed. He failed badly in South Africa (averaging a desperate 12.40) and by the time the Zimbabwe leg of the tour began he had not reached 30 in nine successive innings, by far the worst run of his ODI career, but 87*, 13 and 80 (as well as an international career-best 5-33 in the last game) against the Zimbabweans rescued his winter.
The 2000
Test series against West Indies began with humiliation both for England, who lost by an innings inside three days at Edgbaston
, and for Hick, who made his only Test pair. Things improved for the team thereafter, with England recovering to win the series 3-1, but Hick's real influence was limited to the fourth Test at Headingley
, where his 59 (from number eight, as Caddick
had come in ahead of him as night-watchman) and his stand of 98 with Michael Vaughan
rescued England from 124/6 and paved the way for Caddick's extraordinary burst of 5-14 and England's own victory inside two days. In the ODIs Hick had a very mixed summer, sharing in two century partnerships but averaging barely 25 with a top score of 50 in seven games. It was the beginning of the end for his international career.
, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Hick played five Tests and six ODIs, but only twice were his contributions of real value. In an ODI at Karachi
he came in at 13/2 and put on 114 with Hussain, then in the deciding Test at the same venue his 40 gave vital support to Graham Thorpe (64*) as England clinched a nail-biting win in the face of Pakistani delaying tactics and light so bad that Alec Stewart said they "wouldn't have played in light like that for club games".
Despite these bright spots, overall Hick's winter had been far from a success, and the Test series ended in early March with scores of 0 and 16 at Kandy
. He took the field in Colombo
only as a substitute
, but still managed to incur a one-match suspended ban for sledging.
It was irrelevant: he never played Test cricket again. Later that month he played in the three ODIs against Sri Lanka, and in the last of them he top scored with 46. England, though, were crushed by ten wickets, and Hick's international playing days were at an end.
By the time of his final eviction from the England team in 2000-01, Hick had been already spent one summer as captain of Worcestershire, a post which he held for three seasons (2000
to 2002
inclusive). He enjoyed the responsibility of captaincy, and was "surprised and disappointed" to be relieved of the position in favour of Ben Smith for the 2003 season
.
Hick's personal form during his captaincy was generally good, although his overall statistics in 2000 — the first time he had failed to reach 1,000 runs since 1984 — were depressed by his England travails; in the County Championship alone in those three summers he averaged 43.41, 60.43 and 52.58, and by making 200* at Durham
he completed the set of having made first-class hundreds against all 17 other counties, both home and away. In one-day games the picture was somewhat more mixed, though in June 2001 he did make 155, his highest List A score for 14 years, against Hertfordshire
in the C&G Trophy
.
Hick suffered badly from injuries at this time. He had missed the very end of the 2002 season with a broken thumb, and newly returned to the ranks for 2003 he endured a summer to forget. He began solidly enough, with two centuries and four fifties in his first 14 innings in all cricket, but in early June he broke his hand and was unable to play for six weeks.
At this point Hick was averaging 53 in first-class cricket, but the 13 innings he played after his return in late July produced only 246 runs, leaving him with a season's average of just 33.50, his worst showing since the dark days of 1991. 2004
, however, saw him return to form with a vengeance, his 1,589 first-class runs (at 63.56) his best aggregate since 1990 and the lowest of his four centuries being 158, and he was picked for the FICA World XI team in three one-day games against New Zealand in January 2005, these matches having List A but not ODI status.
The 2005 season
saw Hick return to earth with a bump, enduring another very mixed year. A 176 and four further fifties in eight innings near the start of the summer was followed by an awful trot in which he batted 17 times without reaching 40, only 107 against Essex in the very last innings of the season saving his average from dropping below thirty for the first time ever. The following summer
was much better, and he had the satisfaction first of scoring his hundredth century for Worcestershire, only the second man (after Boycott) since the war to achieve the feat for a single county;
and then of helping Worcestershire to promotion in the last game of the Championship season — his 500th first-class match — scores of 70 and 30* against Northamptonshire
taking him past 1,000 runs for the season. The previous month he had signed a one-year extension to his county contract, having turned down an offer from Derbyshire
. Hick commented: "My heart has always been with Worcestershire and I very much look forward to the next 12 months."
In April 2007, just before Worcestershire's 2007 campaign
got underway, Hick said that despite being contracted only for the season, he did not want to retire at the end of the summer. He said, "I am not looking at it as my last season ... a lot of people say you are a long time retired ... I am still one of the fitter members of the side and I love and enjoy what I do ... Why should I pack it in if I am contributing?"
In June he became the 16th player to score 40,000 first-class runs,
and the following month he agreed another extension to his contract to keep him at New Road for the 2008 season. In 2008, he became the first player to play in more than 1200 games. When he caught Oliver Newby off Kabir Ali at Cheltenham on 30 July, he achieved the rare feat of 1000 catches in a career. He retired at the end of the 2008 season to take up a coaching post at Malvern College
. During the following winter, he played for the Chandigarh Lions
in the rebel Indian Cricket League
.
Hick was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours. He said, "I am very honoured with the award. It was not something I expected or set out to achieve. You dream of things and after 25 years it is nice to have that sort of recognition."
class", and that his technique was flawed, allowing "little give in his hands and no touch in his shots", although by the mid-1990s he had adjusted to an "altogether more fluid and natural" style.
Many writers adjudged Hick, in Christopher Martin-Jenkins' words, "suspect against the short ball",
and Allan Lamb
felt that the one-bouncer-per-over regulation in force in county cricket
in the early 1990s hindered Hick too,
despite the fact that Wasim Akram
believed that the introduction of a similar rule in Test cricket had been specifically for Hick's benefit.
(Hick's performance in Tests against Pakistan was far worse than against any other nation.)
Alec Stewart's analysis was that Hick "didn't get out all that much" to the short ball, but nevertheless "didn't play it as confidently as other shots", because his height (6'3") made him uncertain as to whether to duck or attack the bouncers
.
Geoff Boycott famously labelled him as "a big soft lad" due to his perceived weaknesses against the short ball.
Dickie Bird's opinion was that "the positioning of his feet [was] all wrong ... and that [threw] his head and eyes off line".
Hick's mental approach to the game is the other main weapon in his critics' armoury, and indeed Hick himself admitted to seeking psychological help after having failed.
Prior to Hick's England debut Graham Dilley was bullish, claiming that Hick was "a lot tougher than people realise",
but Ian Botham, another Worcestershire team-mate, noticed "the amount of reassurance [Hick] seemed to need from others around him"
and Peter Roebuck
, in a famous piece in the 1999 Wisden
, said that it was "Hick's fate to be given an ability that did not suit his temperament".
Jonathan Agnew felt his body language against Curtly Ambrose
back in 1991 had been poor, and had almost invited his dismissal,
and Atherton wrote that if Hick had indeed failed to do justice to his talent, it was surely "down to a vital missing ingredient in his mental make-up".
Waugh appears to link this 'missing ingredient' to his dominance in county cricket, stating that "prior to his Test debut his capacity to overcome hardship was never called upon". Waugh also cites the aforementioned 1995 declaration by Michael Atherton as a possible reason for Hick's lack of success in Test cricket, stating that "just as Hick's ... gifts were about to re-emerge, in stepped ... Atherton to extinguish the flame."
George Dobell was tougher, stating bluntly that Hick "should have been strong enough to cope".
Some felt that Hick was the victim of poor man-management, and Hick himself let his feelings slip in 2002, when asked who had been his best coach. "That's the trouble," he replied. "There haven't been any."
Shane Warne
felt he was "a classic example of a player who [had] really been messed around",
and Ian Botham complained that when England had failed it always seemed to be "Hicky's neck [that was] the first on the line",
although the journalist Leo McKinstry criticised Botham's "noisy advocacy of Hick in the face of all the evidence".
Ray Illingworth
's treatment of Hick has also come under considerable scrutiny. Botham considered Illingworth to be "totally out of touch with the modern game",
while the 1995 incident mentioned briefly above, when Illingworth told Hick he had "a soft centre" because of his "mollycoddled upbringing", made even Atherton wince at his bluntness.
(Hick, told by Illingworth to "go out and prove [him] wrong", went on to score 118* against West Indies the following day.) However, Illingworth himself, while considering that Hick, along with Mark Ramprakash
, was "intense, too much so for [his] liking", did allow that the length of time Hick had had to wait to qualify for England was a factor in his becoming "much more set in his ways than an inexperienced batsman."
Hick's ODI statistics are considerably better than his equivalent Test figures, and his eventual career average of 37.33 is higher than any of Gooch, Thorpe and Gower
. Indeed, for a period of more than two years from February 1994 Hick was never ranked lower than tenth in the world ODI rankings, and at the time of his omission from the one-day team halfway through 1996 he was rated number six. Even for the final two years of his ODI career, he was always ranked in the top twenty,
In this form of the game, he could destroy even the best: Andrew Flintoff
recalled an innings of 65 against Pakistan at Sharjah
in 1999 when Hick "was murdering" the "seriously rapid" Shoaib Akhtar
: "If he dropped short, he pulled him and if [he] bowled full, he was driven."
Calls for Hick's recall to the one-day team continued long after his Test career had been given up as a lost cause: Kent captain Matthew Fleming
said in September 2001 that Hick was "still the best one-day batsman in the country"
and as late as 2004 Andrew Miller would write: "whisper it softly, there is still a case for his inclusion in the one-day squad".
Hick himself still felt in early 2002 that he could "offer more in the one-day environment than the majority of people playing in the side".
Despite his difficulties, Hick's cricketing contemporaries have generally been quite complimentary about him. Atherton "liked and respected" him,
while Andrew Flintoff
, as a newcomer to the England side, remembered Hick as "being good to [him] during those early stages [of Flintoff's Test career]".
As a batsman, Allan Donald wrote that Hick was "highly rated by the South African guys".
and Warne called him "purely and simply a quality player".
Steve Waugh said that Hick "had as much talent as any player I ever came across."
David Lloyd noted, not altogether with approval, that other players would rally around Hick protectively, and that "in Alec Stewart he had a man who would champion his cause endlessly".
Stewart himself wrote that Hick was "someone whose talents [he] admire[d] greatly".
Botham summed up the unending nature of the debate when he wrote: "I have no answers. All I can do is wonder how much more English cricket might have got out of Graeme Hick had he been handled differently. I know he does as well."
As for Hick himself, he was asked after the end of his England career whether he considered himself a success or a failure. His answer: "a bit of both".
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 23 May 1966) is a Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
an-born cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er who played 65 Test matches
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
and 120 One Day Internationals for England
English cricket team
The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...
. He played county cricket
County cricket
County cricket is the highest level of domestic cricket in England and Wales. For the 2010 season, see 2010 English cricket season.-First-class counties:...
for Worcestershire
Worcestershire County Cricket Club
Worcestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Worcestershire...
for his entire English domestic career, a period of well over twenty years, and in 2008 he surpassed Graham Gooch
Graham Gooch
Graham Alan Gooch OBE DL is a former cricketer who captained Essex and England. He was one of the most successful international batsmen of his generation, and through a career spanning from 1973 until 2000, he became the most prolific run scorer of all time with 67,057 runs...
's record for the most matches in all forms of the game combined. He scored more than 40,000 first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
runs, mostly from number three in the order
Batting order (cricket)
In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batsmen play through their team's innings, there always being two batsmen taking part at any one time...
, and he is one of only three players to have passed 20,000 runs in List A cricket (Graham Gooch and Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...
are the others) and is one of only twenty-five players to have scored 100 centuries in first-class cricket. He is the only cricketer who scored first-class triple hundreds in three different decades (1988, 1997 and 2002). Despite these achievements, he is commonly held to have underachieved in international cricket, a view based on comparison of Hick's overall first-class batting average of 52.23 vis-à-vis his Test average of 31.32.
At one time Hick's bowling was a significant force, and his off-spin claimed more than 200 first-class wickets. However, after 2001
2001 English cricket season
The 2001 English cricket season saw Yorkshire win the County Championship for the first time since 1968. Australia again won the Ashes, this time largely due to some fine performances by Adam Gilchrist....
he rarely bowled, and took only one first-class and two List A wickets; indeed, after the 2004 season
2004 English cricket season
The 2004 English cricket season saw the English cricket team record a 4-0 Test series whitewash over the West Indies. Their one-day form was poor, however. In the Natwest Trophy, they failed to make the final, which saw New Zealand defeat the West Indies by 107 runs. And in the Natwest Challenge,...
he did not bowl a single ball in either form of the game. Throughout his career he was an outstanding slip fielder
Slip (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a slip fielder is placed behind the batsman on the off side of the field. They are placed with the aim of catching an edged ball which is beyond the wicket-keeper's reach. Many teams employ two or three slips...
: Gooch wrote in his autobiography that his ideal slip cordon would comprise Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor (cricketer)
Mark Anthony Taylor, AO is a former Australian cricket player and Test opening batsman from 1988–1999, as well as captain from 1994–1999, succeeding Allan Border...
, Ian Botham
Ian Botham
Sir Ian Terence Botham OBE is a former England Test cricketer and Test team captain, and current cricket commentator. He was a genuine all-rounder with 14 centuries and 383 wickets in Test cricket, and remains well-known by his nickname "Beefy"...
and Hick.
Hick was granted a benefit season
Benefit season
A benefit season is a method of financially rewarding professional cricketers that is used by English county cricket teams to compensate long serving players....
by Worcestershire in 1999, which raised over £345,000;
he was also awarded a testimonial
Testimonial
In promotion and of advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a written or spoken statement, sometimes from a person figure, sometimes from a private citizen, extolling the virtue of some product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary...
in 2006.
Hick retired from county cricket at the end of the 2008 season, to take up a coaching post at Malvern College
Malvern College
Malvern College is a coeducational independent school located on a 250 acre campus near the town centre of Malvern, Worcestershire in England. Founded on 25 January 1865, until 1992, the College was a secondary school for boys aged 13 to 18...
. For the remaining part of the season, he joined Chandigarh Lions
Chandigarh Lions
Chandigarh Lions was one of the nine teams played in the defunct Indian Cricket League. They were one of the six founding teams and were the runners-up in the inaugural Twenty20 Championship, which was won by Chennai Superstars...
of the Indian Cricket League
Indian Cricket League
The Indian Cricket League was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises that operated between 2007 and 2009 in India...
.
Early life
Born in Salisbury, RhodesiaRhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
(now Harare
Harare
Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...
, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
) into a tobacco-farming family, Hick was at first more interested in hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
than cricket, and indeed went on to play for the national schools hockey team. He was also more of a bowler than a batsman, but in 1979 he began to make big scores regularly, averaging
Batting average
Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...
185 for the school side. He suffered from a mild form of meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
in 1980, but he nevertheless progressed to become captain of the national Junior Schools team, and before long to play for the Senior Schools side.
Aged just 16, Hick played three minor one-day
One-day cricket
Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket and in a slightly different context as List A cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day, whereas Test and first-class matches can take up to five days to complete...
games for Zimbabwe Colts and Zimbabwe Country Districts against Young Australia in 1982-83. He had no success with the bat, being dismissed for 0, 2 and 1, although he did bowl
Bowled
Bowled is a method of dismissing a batsman in the sport of cricket. This method of dismissal is covered by Law 30 of the Laws of cricket.A batsman is out bowled if his wicket is put down by a ball delivered by the bowler...
Dean Jones
Dean Jones (cricketer)
Dean Mervyn Jones AM is a retired Australian cricketer, and is presently a coach. He also worked as a media commentator.-Career:...
in the second match at Mutare
Mutare
Mutare is the fourth largest city in Zimbabwe, with a population of around 170,000. It is the capital of Manicaland province.-History:...
. Hick was included in the Zimbabwean
Zimbabwean cricket team
The Zimbabwean cricket team is a national cricket team representing Zimbabwe. It is administrated by Zimbabwe Cricket...
squad for the 1983 World Cup
1983 Cricket World Cup
The 1983 ICC Cricket World Cup was the third edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup tournament. It was held from 9 June to 25 June 1983 in England and was won by India. Eight countries participated in the event. The preliminary matches were played in two groups of four teams each, and each...
, the youngest player ever to achieve such a status,
but was not selected to play in the tournament. The following Zimbabwean season, on 7 October 1983, Hick made his first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
debut for Zimbabwe against Young West Indies at Harare
Harare Sports Club
Harare Sports Club is a cricket ground in Harare, Zimbabwe. Initially known as Salisbury Sports Club, Harare Sports Club has served as the primary cricket venue in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe since its inception. The ground became a Test venue in October 1992 when Zimbabwe played their inaugural Test,...
. Coming in at number eight in the first innings
Innings
An inning, or innings, is a fixed-length segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably cricket and baseball during which one team attempts to score while the other team attempts to prevent the first from scoring. In cricket, the term innings is both singular and plural and is...
, he hit 28 not out
Not out
In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...
to help set up a narrow three-wicket victory
The result in cricket
The result in a game of cricket may be a win for one of the two teams playing, a draw or a tie. In the case of a limited overs game, the game can also end with no result...
. Eight days later Hick made his List A debut against the same opponents, batting one place lower still and making 16*
Not out
In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...
in a game decided (in Zimbabwe's favour) on run rate
Run rate
In cricket, the run rate , or runs per over is the number of runs a batsman scores in an over of 6 balls. It includes all runs, even the so-called extras awarded due to errors by the bowler. Without extras and overthrows, the maximum run rate is 36 – if every ball were struck for six and, as...
.
On 7 December 1983, Hick took his maiden first-class wicket, bowling Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan cricket team
The Sri Lankan cricket team is the national cricket team of Sri Lanka. The team first played international cricket in 1926–27, and were later awarded Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket playing nation...
Test batsman Susil Fernando
Susil Fernando
Ellekutige Rufus Nemesion Susil Fernando is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who played in 5 Tests and 7 ODIs from 1983 to 1984....
while playing for Zimbabwe against a Sri Lanka Board President's XI. Four days later, Hick made his maiden first-class fifty when he scored 57 against a Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
n XI, and in March 1984 he achieved the same in a one-day match by hitting 62* against Young India — a performance for which he was named Man of the Match for the first time.
Looking back on this period two decades later, Steve Waugh
Steve Waugh
Stephen Rodger "Steve" Waugh, AO is a former Australian cricketer and fraternal twin of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman, he was also a successful medium-pace bowler...
considered that at 18 Hick was as good a player as anyone of that age in the history of cricket.
County cricket
In 19841984 English cricket season
The 1984 English cricket season saw a continued dominance by the best-ever Essex team who won a second successive County Championship and also won the Sunday League.-Honours:*County Championship - Essex*NatWest Trophy - Middlesex...
, Hick came to England on a scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
from the Zimbabwe Cricket Union. For Worcestershire's Second XI he was impressive: he twice took five wickets in an innings, and a prolific sequence of 195, 0, 170 and 186 gained him a first-team debut against Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...
in the last match of the 1984 County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
. Worcestershire declared
Declaration and forfeiture
In the sport of cricket a declaration occurs when a captain declares his team's innings closed and a forfeiture is when a captain chooses to forfeit an innings. Declaration and forfeiture are covered in Law 14 of the Laws of cricket...
in their first innings, and Hick did not get to bat, but in the second — once again coming in at nine — he made 82*, sharing in an unbroken eighth-wicket partnership
Partnership (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, two batsmen always bat in partnership, although only one is on strike at any time. The partnership between two batsmen will come to an end when one of them is dismissed or retires, or the innings comes to a close In the sport of cricket, two batsmen always bat in...
of 133 with captain Phil Neale
Phil Neale
Phillip Anthony "Phil" Neale OBE was a cricketer who played for Worcestershire and captained the team to success in the County Championship in 1988 and 1989. He also played football for Lincoln City and Scunthorpe United...
. He also played club cricket
Club cricket
Club cricket is a mainly amateur, but still formal, form of the sport of cricket, usually involving teams playing in competitions at weekends or in the evening. There is a great deal of variation in game format although the Laws of Cricket are always observed...
for Kidderminster in the Birmingham League
Birmingham and District Premier League
The Birmingham and District Cricket League is the oldest club cricket league in the world, formed in 1888. Arguably the strongest club competition in the country, it was also the first ECB Premier League, being designated such in 1998.- Geography :...
. He hit 1,234 runs for the club that year, a Kidderminster record.
Hick spent the winter playing for Zimbabwe, his highest scores being 95 and 88 in separate matches against Young New Zealand. Hick's good year in 1984 encouraged him to continue playing in England,
and in the English summer that followed
1985 English cricket season
The 1985 English cricket season saw England recover The Ashes against an Australian team that had still not recovered from the Packer affair.-Honors:*County Championship - Middlesex*NatWest Trophy - Essex*Sunday League - Essex...
, Zimbabwe toured England, and Hick played both for them and for his county. He enjoyed a successful season, ending with a batting average
Batting average
Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...
of 52.70, and scoring his first century: 230 for the Zimbabweans against Oxford University
Oxford University Cricket Club
Oxford University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team, representing the University of Oxford. It plays its home games at the University Parks in Oxford, England...
. This was to be the first of six successive English seasons in which Hick averaged more than fifty in first-class cricket.
Playing that winter in Zimbabwe, he made 309 in under seven hours in a minor match against Ireland
Irish cricket team
The Ireland cricket team is the cricket team representing all of Ireland. Because of political difficulties, the Irish Cricket Union was not elected to the International Cricket Council until 1993, and qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2007. The Irish Cricket Union is the...
, the highest score ever made in any form of cricket for either Zimbabwe or its predecessor Rhodesia
Rhodesian cricket team
The Rhodesia cricket team played first-class cricket and represented originally the British colony of Southern Rhodesia and later the unilaterally independent state of Rhodesia which became Zimbabwe...
.
The 1986 English season
1986 English cricket season
The 1986 English cricket season saw Essex win the County Championship for the third time in four seasons.-Honours:*County Championship - Essex*NatWest Trophy - Sussex*Sunday League - Hampshire*Benson & Hedges Cup -...
was the first year in which Hick was notably successful in the one-day game: he hit 889 List A runs that year at an average slightly over forty. 1986 also saw the 20-year-old Hick — newly capped by Worcestershire — become the youngest player to make 2,000 first-class runs in a season,
while in 1987
1987 English cricket season
In the 1987 English cricket season Nottinghamshire pulled off the Championship and NatWest Trophy "double"-Honours:*County Championship - Nottinghamshire*NatWest Trophy - Nottinghamshire*Sunday League - Worcestershire...
, he was named as one of Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
's five Cricketers of the Year. He also had a highly successful season in one-day cricket as Worcestershire won the Refuge Assurance League
National League (cricket)
The NatWest Pro40 League was a one-day cricket league for first-class cricket counties in England and Wales. It was inaugurated in 1999, but was essentially the old Sunday League retitled to reflect the fact that large numbers of matches were played on days other than Sunday.-Sunday League:The...
, passing 1,000 List A runs for the only time, averaging over seventy in such games and making a one-day career-best 172* against Devon
Devon County Cricket Club
Devon County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Devon and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy....
in the NatWest Trophy. By now Hick's career first-class average was well over sixty, and excitement about his run-scoring ability was becoming enormous.
The following summer
1988 English cricket season
The 1988 English cricket season was dominated by Worcestershire who won the first of two successive championships and also a second successive Sunday league title....
, Hick made a major contribution to his county's first County Championship title since 1974
1974 English cricket season
The 1974 English cricket season continued the recent pattern of joint tours with India and Pakistan again playing three Tests each against England.-Honours:*County Championship - Worcestershire*Gillette Cup - Kent...
. He became the first man since Glenn Turner
Glenn Turner
Glenn Maitland Turner played cricket for New Zealand and was one of the country's best and most prolific batsmen. He is the current head of the New Zealand Cricket selection panel....
, and only the eighth in history, to hit a thousand first-class runs before the end of May,
with 410 of those runs coming in April alone, a record for that month until Ian Bell scored 480 in April 2005
2005 English cricket season
Before the beginning of the 2005 English cricket season began, a resurgent English cricket team had won four Test series in a row, going unbeaten through the 2004 calendar year. The start of the international season saw England defeat Bangladesh 2–0 in their two-match series, winning both Tests by...
. In the first week of May he made what remains his highest first-class score: 405* against Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...
, and at that point the thousand seemed almost inevitable. However, Hick's next four innings totalled a mere 32, leaving him with the daunting task of making 153 runs in the last match of the month, against the touring West Indians at New Road
New Road, Worcester
New Road, Worcester, England, has been the home cricket ground of Worcestershire County Cricket Club since 1896. Immediately to the northwest is a road called New Road, part of the A44, hence the name.- Overview :...
. Hick did it on the first day, ending 172 not out and scoring a total of 1,019 runs before the end of May. In all that season he scored a career-best aggregate of 2,713 runs including ten first-class hundreds, matching the Worcestershire record set by Glenn Turner
Glenn Turner
Glenn Maitland Turner played cricket for New Zealand and was one of the country's best and most prolific batsmen. He is the current head of the New Zealand Cricket selection panel....
in 1970
1970 English cricket season
The 1970 English cricket season was marked by controversy when a tour by South Africa was forced to be abandoned in view of mounting opposition to the apartheid policy maintained by that country's then government...
.
One of these, a 79-ball knock against Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...
in August, won the Walter Lawrence Trophy
Walter Lawrence Trophy
The Walter Lawrence Trophy is an annual award made to the player who has scored the fastest century in English domestic county cricket that season, in terms of balls received...
for the fastest century of the season. To cap it all, he was also named Player of the Year by the Professional Cricketers' Association
Professional Cricketers' Association
The Professional Cricketers' Association is the representative body of past and present first-class cricketers in England and Wales, founded in 1967...
.
In both 1987-88 and 1988-89 Hick spent his winters playing in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
for Northern Districts. He was a great success, hitting ten centuries in all and averaging 63.61 in the former season and a startling 94.46 in the latter; in one game against Auckland
Auckland Aces
The Auckland domestic cricket team represent the Auckland region and are one of six New Zealand domestic first class cricket teams. Governed by the Auckland Cricket Association they are the most successful side having won 26 Plunket Shield titles, eight Domestic One Day Championships and the HRV...
he scored a first-class record 173 runs between tea and close of play. It was at this time that John Bracewell
John Bracewell
John Garry Bracewell is a New Zealand cricketer and coach. He played 41 Test matches between 1979-80 and 1990, as well as 53 One Day Internationals. He has been the coach of the New Zealand cricket team since the autumn of 2003...
called him a "flat-track bully", a comment which was to dog Hick throughout his England career.
Back in England, the 1989 season
1989 English cricket season
The 1989 English cricket season saw the re-emergence of Australia as a world-class team after it had struggled for most of the previous 12 years. Under the leadership of Allan Border, a very fine team had been forged that included Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor, Ian Healy, David Boon and Merv Hughes...
when Worcestershire retained the Championship (with Hick's 26 wickets at under 20
Bowling average
Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...
the best return of his career) and, especially, the "batsmen's paradise" 1990 season
1990 English cricket season
The 1990 English season was one of the most batsmen-friendly summers in living memory. The size of the seam on the cricket ball had been reduced markedly from 1989, and along with dry conditions and the extension of four-day cricket this allowed batsmen to build huge scores: Graham Gooch became one...
saw Hick continue to pile up the big scores. He scored well over 4,000 first-class runs in the two years combined and averaged 90.46 in 1990, his highest average in any English summer and overall second only to his aforementioned New Zealand season. He followed that up with a reasonably successful winter playing for Queensland
Queensland Bulls
The Queensland cricket team, nicknamed the Bulls, are the Brisbane-based Queensland representative cricket team in Australia's domestic cricket tournaments:*Sheffield Shield, 4-day matches with first-class status, since the 1926/27 season...
, and in March 1991 scored 91 for Worcestershire against Zimbabwe at Harare, but already the public's mind was firmly on the summer
1991 English cricket season
The 1991 English cricket season was notable for some outstanding fast bowling performances by Messrs Ambrose, Donald and Waqar.-Honours:*County Championship - Essex*NatWest Trophy - Hampshire*Sunday League - Nottinghamshire...
, when he would qualify to play for England.
Playing for England
By the time the 1986 season was out, the possibility of Hick's playing at Test level was being taken seriously, and the debate was shifting from whether he would play international cricket to which country he would represent. At the time, Zimbabwe seemed a long way from Test status, and so — with some reluctance — he set himself instead to fulfill the residency requirements for England qualification, and despite an offer of a four-year qualification period from New ZealandNew Zealand cricket team
The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...
he opted to take the longer path of a seven-year wait to play for his newly adopted home. By the time he became eligible, public interest in his seeming destiny as a great batsman for country as well as county was intense; David Lloyd
David Lloyd (cricketer)
David Lloyd is a former English cricketer who played county cricket for Lancashire and Test and One Day International cricket for England. He also played semi-professional football for Accrington Stanley...
was later to write that he doubted "any cricketer [had] ever come into the international game burdened by such impossible expectations".
Hick's Worcestershire team-mate Graham Dilley
Graham Dilley
Graham Roy Dilley was an English cricketer, whose main role was as a fast bowler. He played first-class cricket for Kent and Worcestershire, and appeared in 41 test matches and 36 ODIs for England...
had been in no doubt that he would succeed, perhaps ironically given what was to follow writing that Hick exerted "psychological pressure on the bowlers, like Viv Richards
Viv Richards
Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards, KNH, OBE is a former West Indian cricketer. Better known by his second name, Vivian or, more popularly, simply as Viv or King Viv Richards was voted one of the five Cricketers of the Century in 2000, by a 100-member panel of experts, along with Sir Donald...
or Javed Miandad
Javed Miandad
Mohammad Javed Miandad Khan , popularly known as Javed Miandad , is a former Pakistani cricketer who played between 1975 and 1996. He is Pakistan's leading run scorer in Test cricket. He has served as a captain of the Pakistan national cricket team...
."
Hick made his first appearances as an England batsman in a three-match One Day International series against West Indies, the first being played at Edgbaston
Edgbaston Cricket Ground
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...
on 23 May 1991. He made only 14 in a low-scoring game, but a few days later, in the third and final match of the series, he hit 86* and shared in a match-winning stand of 213 with Neil Fairbrother
Neil Fairbrother
Neil Fairbrother is a former English cricket player, named by his mother after her favourite player, the Australian cricketer Neil Harvey. He was educated at Lymm High School....
. The stage seemed set for Hick's Test debut at Headingley
Headingley Stadium
Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....
on 6 June, and Hick was even pictured on the cover of the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
.
He was given a hero's reception by the crowd as he came out to bat, but a tortured 51 minutes later he was back in the pavilion having made only six, and he could do no better in the second innings. After further innings of 0, 43, 0, 19 and 1 he was dropped before the last match of the series. Although Worcestershire did win the Benson & Hedges Cup
Benson & Hedges Cup
The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals....
, in first-class cricket Hick finished with an average for the season of just 32.91, which remains his lowest in any English summer.
He then played all three Tests in New Zealand, but apart from a marathon bowling performance in the first innings at Wellington
Basin Reserve
The Basin Reserve , is a cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand, used for Test, first-class and one-day cricket. Some argue that its proximity to the city, its Historic Place status and its age make it the most famous cricket ground in New Zealand...
where he and Phil Tufnell
Phil Tufnell
Philip Clive Roderick Tufnell is a former English cricketer turned television personality. A slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler, "Tuffers" as he was known played 42 Tests and 20 One Day International matches for England, as well as playing for Middlesex from 1986 to 2002...
shared 140 overs almost equally (Hick's 69-27-126-4
Bowling analysis
In the sport of cricket, a bowling analysis usually refers to a notation summarising a bowler's performance in terms of overs bowled, how many of those overs are maidens , total runs conceded and number of wickets taken...
was to be his best in Tests), he again had little to smile about. Considerably more enjoyable for him was the 1992 World Cup
1992 Cricket World Cup
-New Zealand:-Round Robin Stage:Co-hosts New Zealand proved the surprise packet of the tournament, winning their first seven games to finish on top of the table after the round robin. The other hosts, Australia, were one of the pre-tournament favourites but lost their first two matches. They...
which immediately followed: England reached the final, thanks in no small part to Hick's three half-centuries. The most important of these came in the semi-final against South Africa
South African cricket team
The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...
at the SCG
Sydney Cricket Ground
The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...
. Although this game is now more often remembered for the rain-related fiasco which left South Africa needing an impossible 22 runs from one ball, it was Hick's Man-of-the-Match-winning knock of 83 (in an innings where the second top score was 33) which made England's victory possible in the first place. He could not replicate it in the final, being lbw to Mushtaq Ahmed
Mushtaq Ahmed
Mushtaq Ahmed is a retired Pakistani cricketer who specialised as a leg spin bowler. He was known for his hard-to-pick googly. He memorably trapped Graeme Hick in front with one during the 1992 World Cup final. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1997...
for 17.
In 1992
1992 English cricket season
-Honours:*County Championship - Essex*NatWest Trophy - Northamptonshire*Sunday League - Middlesex*Benson & Hedges Cup -*Minor Counties Championship - Staffordshire*MCCA Knockout Trophy - Devon...
Hick finally made a Test half-century, 51 against Pakistan
Pakistani cricket team
The Pakistan cricket team is the national cricket team of Pakistan. Pakistan, represented by the Pakistan Cricket Board , is a full member of the International Cricket Council, and thus participates in , and cricket matches....
, but as with the West Indian series he was dropped before the end of the summer. This time at least he scored heavily for Worcestershire, averaging nearly seventy for his county. This domestic form, together with his ability against spin bowling
Spin bowling
Spin bowling is a technique used for bowling in the sport of cricket. Practitioners are known as spinners or spin bowlers.-Purpose:The main aim of spin bowling is to bowl the cricket ball with rapid rotation so that when it bounces on the pitch it will deviate, thus making it difficult for the...
, secured Hick a place on the 1992-93 tour of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, and in a generally disastrous tour for England (they lost two Tests by an innings and the other by eight wickets) he was one of the very few bright spots; indeed, he topped both batting and bowling averages for his country, as well as scoring 249 runs in the six ODIs. The personal highlight for Hick was his long-awaited maiden Test hundred: 178 in the third Test at Bombay
Wankhede Stadium
The Sheshrao Krushnarao Wankhede Stadium is a cricket stadium in the Indian city of Mumbai. This ground was built after disputes between the Cricket Club of India, which owns the Brabourne Stadium, and the Mumbai Cricket Association over the allocation of tickets for cricket matches...
; he added another 47 in the second innings. He then scored 68 and 26 in the one-off Test against Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan cricket team
The Sri Lankan cricket team is the national cricket team of Sri Lanka. The team first played international cricket in 1926–27, and were later awarded Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket playing nation...
which immediately followed. For his achievements in the subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
, he was named one of Indian Cricket
Indian Cricket (annual)
Indian Cricket was a cricket yearbook published by The Hindu from 1946–47 to 2004. There was no 2003 issue and so there are 57 editions in all. During most of its run it was the principal annual of its kind in India...
s five Cricketers of the Year in 1993.
Successful years
The Indian tour proved to be the start of by far the most successful period of Hick's Test career. At the end of 1992 his average was a mere 18.06, but by the end of the South African series just over three years later it had improved to a very respectable 38.66; his average over those three years alone was an impressive 46.44. In the first ODI of 19931993 English cricket season
The 1993 English cricket season saw the dramatic arrival on the scene of Shane Warne and his incredible "Gatting Ball". Australia, led by Steve Waugh, now had one of the strongest teams ever known and won the Ashes with plenty to spare....
Hick made 85, but in the first Ashes
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
Test at Old Trafford
Old Trafford (cricket)
Old Trafford is a cricket ground situated on Talbot Road in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester. It has been the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club since its foundation in 1864, having been the ground of Manchester Cricket Club from 1857...
, he was famously sledged
Sledging (cricket)
Sledging is a term used in cricket to describe the practice whereby some players seek to gain an advantage by insulting or verbally intimidating the opposing player. The purpose is to try to weaken the opponent's concentration, thereby causing him to make mistakes or underperform...
by Merv Hughes
Merv Hughes
Mervyn Gregory Hughes is a former Australian cricketer. A right-arm fast bowler, he represented Australia between 1985 and 1994 in 53 Test matches, taking 212 wickets. He played 33 One Day Internationals, taking 38 wickets. He took a hat trick in a Test against the West Indies at the WACA in...
, leading umpire Dickie Bird to ask him: "What has that nice Mr Hick ever done to you?" Hughes later commented that although he had been "a bit OTT with Hick", he "only sledged batsmen [he] respected".
Despite scores of 34, 22, 20 and 64, Hick — along with Mike Gatting
Mike Gatting
Michael "Mike" William Gatting OBE is a former English cricketer, who played first-class cricket for Middlesex and for England from 1977 to 1995, captaining the national side in twenty-three Test matches between 1986 and 1988...
— was dropped after the second Test at Lord's; the decision amazed Shane Warne
Shane Warne
Shane Keith Warne is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet...
.
Hick was recalled for the sixth Test at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
and hit 80 and 36 in a 161-run England victory, giving him a series average of 42.66, behind only Gooch
Graham Gooch
Graham Alan Gooch OBE DL is a former cricketer who captained Essex and England. He was one of the most successful international batsmen of his generation, and through a career spanning from 1973 until 2000, he became the most prolific run scorer of all time with 67,057 runs...
, Atherton
Mike Atherton
Michael Andrew Atherton OBE is a broadcaster, journalist and retired England international cricketer. A right-handed opening batsman for Lancashire and England,and occasional leg-break bowler, he achieved the captaincy of England at the age of 25 and led the side in a record 54 Test matches...
and Thorpe
Graham Thorpe
Graham Paul Thorpe MBE is a former English cricketer who played for Surrey and England. A left-handed middle-order batsman and slip fielder, he appeared in exactly 100 Test matches.-Early life:...
among England's specialist batsmen in a series in which England used 24 players.
A reasonable tour of West Indies followed, although Hick narrowly failed to make a maiden hundred against this opposition when he was dismissed for 96 in the Jamaican
Sabina Park
Sabina Park is the home of the Kingston Cricket Club, and is the only Test cricket ground in Kingston, Jamaica and is often referred to as "The Holiday Home of Cricket"....
Test, and did not make a fifty in five ODI innings. Then
1994 English cricket season
The 1994 English cricket season saw the emergence of a very strong Warwickshire team who won both the County Championship and the Sunday League.-Honours:*County Championship - Warwickshire*NatWest Trophy - Worcestershire...
came two short series against New Zealand and South Africa
South African cricket team
The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...
; he played in all six Tests and reached double figures in all ten innings, although he was not particularly successful against New Zealand, with a top score of only 58. Against the South Africans, however, he averaged over sixty, making 110 in the Second Test and a match-winning 81* (at a run a ball) in England's dash to victory in the Third. He played in three of the four ODIs and failed in two of them, but made another 81 against South Africa.
The 1994-95 Ashes tour came to be known for one incident in particular. In the third Test at Sydney, England captain Mike Atherton had let it be known to his players that he intended to declare. Hick was nearing what would have been his first Ashes century, but Atherton felt he was scoring too slowly and that as a result the team were "dawdling".
He took the decision to call the players in with Hick 98 not out. Hick was surprised and hurt not to be allowed to reach his hundred: Alec Stewart wrote later that his team-mates "couldn't believe" the decision, and he felt that it "cost [England] dearly".
Atherton admitted in his autobiography that although he still felt the declaration had been justified in strictly cricketing terms, he would not have taken such a decision again.
Phil Tufnell
Phil Tufnell
Philip Clive Roderick Tufnell is a former English cricketer turned television personality. A slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler, "Tuffers" as he was known played 42 Tests and 20 One Day International matches for England, as well as playing for Middlesex from 1986 to 2002...
felt similarly, saying that while there was a match to win, "a few of [the team] were also very sorry for Hick."
Jonathan Agnew
Jonathan Agnew
Jonathan Philip Agnew is an English cricket broadcaster and former professional cricketer. He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire and educated at Uppingham School. He is nicknamed "Aggers", and, less commonly, "Spiro"....
's sympathies, however, lay with the captain, telling Atherton that his "conscience should be clear".
Hick seemed to be overcoming his disappointment over the next few days, making a match-winning 91 in a World Series Cup
World Series Cup
The World Series Cup was the name of the One Day International cricket tournament that took place in Australia every season between Australia and two touring teams from 1979-80 to 1995-96. The tournament was renamed the World Series from 1990-1. This was the very first of the One Day International ...
ODI — a performance which lifted him to second behind only Brian Lara
Brian Lara
Brian Charles Lara, TC, OCC, AM is a former West Indian international cricket player. Lara is generally regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time...
in the world rankings
— and following up with 143 in a four-day game against Victoria
Victorian Bushrangers
The Victorian cricket team, nicknamed the Bushrangers, is an Australian cricket team based in Melbourne, that represents the state of Victoria. It is administered by Cricket Victoria and draws its players from Melbourne's Premier Cricket competition...
. But he did not get a chance to make that Ashes century: a slipped disc
Spinal disc herniation
A spinal disc herniation , informally and misleadingly called a "slipped disc", is a medical condition affecting the spine due to trauma, lifting injuries, or idiopathic, in which a tear in the outer, fibrous ring of an intervertebral disc allows the soft, central portion A spinal disc herniation...
ended his tour just before the fourth Test.
He never came so close to one again. Hick's injury and the declaration affair overshadowed what up to that point had been a somewhat mixed series as far as the Tests had been concerned: in his other five innings he had been dismissed cheaply three times, but he had also made 80 at Brisbane.
West Indies visited in 1995
1995 English cricket season
The 1995 English cricket season saw a continued dominance of the domestic scene by Warwickshire.-Honours:*County Championship - Warwickshire CCC*NatWest Trophy - Warwickshire CCC*Sunday League - Kent CCC*Benson & Hedges Cup -...
, and Hick — an "automatic pick" for Atherton at this point in his career
— enjoyed a good summer, averaging just over 50 in the Tests with the highlights being 118* at Trent Bridge
Trent Bridge
Trent Bridge is a Test, One-day international and County cricket ground located in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England and is also the headquarters of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club. As well as International cricket and Nottinghamshire's home games, the ground has hosted the Finals Day of...
(he had been told the previous day by Ray Illingworth
Ray Illingworth
Raymond Illingworth, CBE is a former English cricketer, cricket commentator and cricket administrator. He was one of only nine players to have taken 2,000 wickets and made 20,000 runs in First class cricket, and the last one to do so...
that he had a "soft centre"
) and then 96 and 51* in the final Test at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
. He also averaged over 50 in the County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
, and took a career-best 5-18 against Leicestershire
Leicestershire County Cricket Club
Leicestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Leicestershire. It has also been representative of the county of Rutland....
in early July. In the Benson & Hedges Cup, he scored three hundreds in five matches as Worcestershire reached the semi-final. In that game, Hick made 109 and took two wickets, but Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
won a close contest with four balls to spare.
That winter's tour was to South Africa, and Hick made a superb hundred on the first day of the first Test at Centurion Park
Centurion Park
SuperSport Park, is a cricket ground in Centurion, Gauteng Province, South Africa.It was renamed from Centurion Park after a television company Supersport bought shares in the stadium...
; Allan Donald
Allan Donald
Allan Anthony Donald is a former South African cricketer and one of their most successful pace bowlers.In his prime, he was one of the best fast bowlers ever seen in Test cricket, reaching the top of the ICC Test rankings in 1998 and peaked with a top ICC ranking of 895 points the next year, the...
later conceded that "he hammered us".
He advanced his score to 141 the next day before falling lbw
Leg before wicket
In the sport of cricket, leg before wicket is one of the ways in which a batsman can be dismissed. An umpire will rule a batsman out LBW under a series of circumstances which primarily include the ball striking the batsman's body when it would otherwise have continued on to hit the batsman's...
to Pollock
Shaun Pollock
Shaun Maclean Pollock is a retired South African cricketer who is considered a bowling all-rounder. From 2000 to 2003 he was the captain of the South African cricket team, and also played for Africa XI, World XI, Dolphins and Warwickshire. He was also chosen as the Wisden Cricketer of the Year in...
, but appalling weather washed out the last three days of the game and the match was drawn. Hick, having reached his highest ever Test ranking of seventh,
played in all five Tests and seven ODIs on that tour, but passed fifty only twice. The 1996 World Cup
1996 Cricket World Cup
The 1996 Cricket World Cup, also called the Wills World Cup after its official sponsors, was the sixth edition of the tournament organized by the International Cricket Council . It was the second World Cup to be hosted by Pakistan and India, and for the first time by Sri Lanka...
in the subcontinent immediately followed, but 85 against New Zealand was his only major contribution against top-class opposition.
Back to the struggle
Hick seemed set fair for another productive season in 19961996 English cricket season
The 1996 English cricket season saw England host tours by India and Pakistan, who each played three Tests and three ODIs. Against India, England were unbeaten, winning the Test series 1-0 and the ODI series 2-0...
, especially after making 215 for Worcestershire against the Indians in May, but it was not to be. His form completely deserted him as he could manage just 35 runs in four innings against India, and when he was dismissed cheaply twice in the first Test against Pakistan the selectors had had enough and he was dropped from both Test and ODI teams, not to be selected again for a year and a half. Back at Worcestershire, he scored unevenly: immediately after his being dropped by England he made 148 and 86 against Kent
Kent County Cricket Club
Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the county of Kent...
, but he then endured a run of ten innings in all cricket without making more than 30, before hitting 54 and 106 against Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....
in the penultimate Championship game of the season.
For the first time since becoming eligible to play for England, Hick was omitted from the winter tour parties altogether, an omission particularly painful as the programme was to include not only a return to New Zealand but the first ever Tests between Zimbabwe and England. In the event Hick did play in the country, but only as part of Worcestershire's own tour; he took six wickets in their match against a Matabeleland
Matabeleland
Modern day Matabeleland is a region in Zimbabwe divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people...
Invitation XI in what must have been a bittersweet experience. The 1997 English season
1997 English cricket season
The 1997 English cricket season centred on the six Test Ashes series against Australia. England won the first, at Edgbaston, by the decisive margin of nine wickets, and the rain-affected second Test at Lord's was drawn, but any English optimism was short-lived...
was the first for seven years in which Hick had no international duties to perform, and he averaged 69 in scoring over 1,500 first-class runs, the highlight being an unbeaten 303 in the final match of the season against Hampshire
Hampshire County Cricket Club
Hampshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Hampshire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1863 as a successor to the Hampshire county cricket teams and has played at the Antelope Ground from then until 1885, before moving to the County Ground where it...
, sharing in an unbroken third-wicket partnership of 438 with Tom Moody
Tom Moody
Thomas Masson Moody is a former Australian cricketer and coach of the Sri Lankan cricket team. Today he is the coach for the IPL team Kings XI Punjab...
, an English record for that wicket
and a Worcestershire record for any wicket.
Hick was recalled to England duties for the Singer-Akai Champions Trophy ODI series at Sharjah
Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium
The Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium is in the emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. It was originally constructed in the early 1980s and has been much improved over the years...
in December 1997, and in April 1998 for just the ODI portion of the West Indies series. He played in nine games altogether, but though he got starts on several occasions he never reached fifty.
Hick began the 1998 season
1998 English cricket season
In the 1998 English cricket season Leicestershire won the championship for the second time in three seasons while Lancashire performed the one day double.-Honours:*County Championship - Leicestershire*NatWest Trophy - Lancashire...
slowly and was left out of the England team at the start of the year, but he responded with four hundreds in successive first-class innings in late May and early June. Although this form left him somewhat thereafter, he was nevertheless selected for the final two Tests against South Africa. A total of nine runs from three innings left his hopes of a place on the Ashes tour looking extremely shaky, but after two half-centuries in ODIs and then 107 in the one-off Test against Sri Lanka it seemed he might have done just enough. However, his century was outshone by John Crawley
John Crawley
John Paul Crawley is a retired English professional cricketer, who represented England in 37 Test matches. He is regarded alongside his near contemporaries Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash as a hugely talented player who failed to realise his full potential at international level.Crawley is a...
's 156 in the same innings and in the end it was the Lancashire man who got the nod. Hick was left at home, to console himself with the memory of the adulation of the Worcestershire crowd: in May at New Road he had made his hundredth first-class century.
Just before the first Test, however, Hick received an emergency call-up — officially as "reinforcement" rather than a replacement — as Atherton's chronic back problem (ankylosing spondylitis
Ankylosing spondylitis
Ankylosing spondylitis , previously known as Bekhterev's disease, Bekhterev syndrome, and Marie-Strümpell disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the axial skeleton with variable involvement of peripheral joints and nonarticular structures...
) had been causing him severe pain.
Hick ended up playing in four Tests, but he had a rather poor series overall, averaging 25, although his defiant 68 in a losing cause at Perth stuck in the memory and his 39 and 60 contributed significantly to England's 12-run win at Melbourne
Melbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
(even if Dean Headley
Dean Headley
Dean Warren Headley is an English cricketer.He comes from a famous cricketing family, being the son of Ron Headley and grandson of George Headley. He was the first Test cricketer to be both the son and grandson of Test cricketers...
's 6-60 was more remarked upon). In the ODIs against both Australia and Sri Lanka Hick did much better, making more than 500 runs — including a fine run of 108, 66*, 126* and 109 in successive innings — and being named England's Man of the Series.
The 1999 World Cup
1999 Cricket World Cup
-England:-Outside England:-Group A:-Results:-------------------------------------------------------------Group B:-Results:------------------------------------------------------------...
was held in England, and after Hick's ODI achievements in Australia Allan Donald felt he would be the home team's danger man.
David Lloyd also "strongly fancied [Hick] to have a serious influence" on the competition, but he was frustrated by Hick's reluctance to accept a flexible batting order, only with considerable difficulty at a "frosty team meeting" getting him to agree to drop down from three when required.
Despite Hick's uneasiness over the issue, and England's general incompetence in the tournament, he averaged 53 — second only to Nasser Hussain
Nasser Hussain
Nasser Hussain OBE is a former Essex and England cricketer.Beginning his career in a strong Essex side in the late 1980s, he was an outstanding fielder and a stylish but inconsistent batsman. In first-class cricket from 1987 to 2004 Hussain scored 20,698 runs in 334 matches at an average of 42.06,...
, the only one of his team-mates to average more than 30. Frustratingly for Hick, the series against New Zealand that followed contained no one-dayers at all, and he was picked for only the third of the four Tests, making 12 in his only innings. It was no real surprise that he was picked for only the ODI part of the winter tour to South Africa and the short ODI series in Zimbabwe which followed. He failed badly in South Africa (averaging a desperate 12.40) and by the time the Zimbabwe leg of the tour began he had not reached 30 in nine successive innings, by far the worst run of his ODI career, but 87*, 13 and 80 (as well as an international career-best 5-33 in the last game) against the Zimbabweans rescued his winter.
The 2000
2000 English cricket season
The 2000 English cricket season was marked by the dominance of Surrey in first-class cricket and Gloucestershire in limited overs.-Honours:*County Championship - Surrey*NatWest Trophy - Gloucestershire*National League - Gloucestershire...
Test series against West Indies began with humiliation both for England, who lost by an innings inside three days at Edgbaston
Edgbaston Cricket Ground
Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...
, and for Hick, who made his only Test pair. Things improved for the team thereafter, with England recovering to win the series 3-1, but Hick's real influence was limited to the fourth Test at Headingley
Headingley Stadium
Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....
, where his 59 (from number eight, as Caddick
Andrew Caddick
Andrew Richard Caddick is a retired cricketer who played for England as a fast-medium bowler. At 6 ft 5in, Caddick was a successful bowler for England for a decade, taking 13 five-wicket hauls in Test matches...
had come in ahead of him as night-watchman) and his stand of 98 with Michael Vaughan
Michael Vaughan
Michael Paul Vaughan OBE is a retired cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England. A classically elegant right-handed batsman and occasional off-spinner, Vaughan was ranked one of the best batsmen in the world following the 2002/3 Ashes, in which he scored 633 runs, including three centuries...
rescued England from 124/6 and paved the way for Caddick's extraordinary burst of 5-14 and England's own victory inside two days. In the ODIs Hick had a very mixed summer, sharing in two century partnerships but averaging barely 25 with a top score of 50 in seven games. It was the beginning of the end for his international career.
Retirement, and after
On what was to prove his last winter tours for England, of KenyaKenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Hick played five Tests and six ODIs, but only twice were his contributions of real value. In an ODI at Karachi
National Stadium, Karachi
The National Stadium is a cricket stadium in Karachi, Pakistan. It is currently used for cricket matches, and is home to Karachi's domestic cricket teams. The stadium is able to hold 34,228 spectators, making it the second largest cricket stadium in Pakistan after Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore...
he came in at 13/2 and put on 114 with Hussain, then in the deciding Test at the same venue his 40 gave vital support to Graham Thorpe (64*) as England clinched a nail-biting win in the face of Pakistani delaying tactics and light so bad that Alec Stewart said they "wouldn't have played in light like that for club games".
Despite these bright spots, overall Hick's winter had been far from a success, and the Test series ended in early March with scores of 0 and 16 at Kandy
Asgiriya Stadium
Asgiriya International Stadium, is a Cricket stadium situated in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Asgiriya Stadium is the private property of Trinity College, Kandy. It is around a 10 minute walk from the centre of the city. The venue would usually be used when an international team toured Sri Lanka for a Test...
. He took the field in Colombo
Sinhalese Sports Club Ground
The Sinhalese Sports Club is one of the most famous cricket grounds in Sri Lanka. It is theheadquarters of Sri Lanka Cricket, the controlling body of cricket in Sri Lanka. The Ground often cited as the Lord's of Sri Lanka, hosting most domestic finals and one of preeminent international cricket...
only as a substitute
Substitute (cricket)
A substitute in the sport of cricket is a replacement player that the umpires allow when a player has been injured or become ill after the nomination of the players at the start of the game...
, but still managed to incur a one-match suspended ban for sledging.
It was irrelevant: he never played Test cricket again. Later that month he played in the three ODIs against Sri Lanka, and in the last of them he top scored with 46. England, though, were crushed by ten wickets, and Hick's international playing days were at an end.
By the time of his final eviction from the England team in 2000-01, Hick had been already spent one summer as captain of Worcestershire, a post which he held for three seasons (2000
2000 English cricket season
The 2000 English cricket season was marked by the dominance of Surrey in first-class cricket and Gloucestershire in limited overs.-Honours:*County Championship - Surrey*NatWest Trophy - Gloucestershire*National League - Gloucestershire...
to 2002
2002 English cricket season
The 2002 English cricket season saw 2001 county champions Yorkshire relegated. They did, however, win the C&G Trophy.-Honours:*County Championship - Surrey*C&G Trophy - Yorkshire*National League - Glamorgan*Benson & Hedges Cup -...
inclusive). He enjoyed the responsibility of captaincy, and was "surprised and disappointed" to be relieved of the position in favour of Ben Smith for the 2003 season
2003 English cricket season
The 2003 English cricket season was notable for the long overdue first official County Championship of the oldest county club: Sussex.-Honours:*County Championship - Sussex*C&G Trophy - Gloucestershire*National League - Surrey...
.
Hick's personal form during his captaincy was generally good, although his overall statistics in 2000 — the first time he had failed to reach 1,000 runs since 1984 — were depressed by his England travails; in the County Championship alone in those three summers he averaged 43.41, 60.43 and 52.58, and by making 200* at Durham
Riverside Ground
The Riverside Ground, officially called the Emirates Durham International Cricket Ground, is a cricket venue in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England. It is home to Durham County Cricket Club....
he completed the set of having made first-class hundreds against all 17 other counties, both home and away. In one-day games the picture was somewhat more mixed, though in June 2001 he did make 155, his highest List A score for 14 years, against Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire County Cricket Club
Hertfordshire County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Hertfordshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...
in the C&G Trophy
C&G Trophy
The Friends Provident Trophy was a one-day cricket competition in the United Kingdom.It was one of the four tournaments in which the eighteen first-class counties compete each season. They were joined by teams from Scotland and Ireland...
.
Hick suffered badly from injuries at this time. He had missed the very end of the 2002 season with a broken thumb, and newly returned to the ranks for 2003 he endured a summer to forget. He began solidly enough, with two centuries and four fifties in his first 14 innings in all cricket, but in early June he broke his hand and was unable to play for six weeks.
At this point Hick was averaging 53 in first-class cricket, but the 13 innings he played after his return in late July produced only 246 runs, leaving him with a season's average of just 33.50, his worst showing since the dark days of 1991. 2004
2004 English cricket season
The 2004 English cricket season saw the English cricket team record a 4-0 Test series whitewash over the West Indies. Their one-day form was poor, however. In the Natwest Trophy, they failed to make the final, which saw New Zealand defeat the West Indies by 107 runs. And in the Natwest Challenge,...
, however, saw him return to form with a vengeance, his 1,589 first-class runs (at 63.56) his best aggregate since 1990 and the lowest of his four centuries being 158, and he was picked for the FICA World XI team in three one-day games against New Zealand in January 2005, these matches having List A but not ODI status.
The 2005 season
2005 English cricket season
Before the beginning of the 2005 English cricket season began, a resurgent English cricket team had won four Test series in a row, going unbeaten through the 2004 calendar year. The start of the international season saw England defeat Bangladesh 2–0 in their two-match series, winning both Tests by...
saw Hick return to earth with a bump, enduring another very mixed year. A 176 and four further fifties in eight innings near the start of the summer was followed by an awful trot in which he batted 17 times without reaching 40, only 107 against Essex in the very last innings of the season saving his average from dropping below thirty for the first time ever. The following summer
2006 English cricket season
The 2006 English cricket season includes home international series for England against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. England are coming off a winter with more Test losses than wins, for the first time since 2002-03, but still attained their best series result in India since 1985...
was much better, and he had the satisfaction first of scoring his hundredth century for Worcestershire, only the second man (after Boycott) since the war to achieve the feat for a single county;
and then of helping Worcestershire to promotion in the last game of the Championship season — his 500th first-class match — scores of 70 and 30* against Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Northamptonshire. Its limited overs team is called the Northants Steelbacks. The traditional club colour is Maroon. During the...
taking him past 1,000 runs for the season. The previous month he had signed a one-year extension to his county contract, having turned down an offer from Derbyshire
Derbyshire County Cricket Club
Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the England and Wales domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Derbyshire...
. Hick commented: "My heart has always been with Worcestershire and I very much look forward to the next 12 months."
In April 2007, just before Worcestershire's 2007 campaign
2007 English cricket season
The 2007 English cricket season began on Saturday 14 April 2007 with the match between MCC and the 2006 county champions Sussex at Lord's.-Roll of honour:Test series*England v West Indies: 4 Tests - England won 3–0....
got underway, Hick said that despite being contracted only for the season, he did not want to retire at the end of the summer. He said, "I am not looking at it as my last season ... a lot of people say you are a long time retired ... I am still one of the fitter members of the side and I love and enjoy what I do ... Why should I pack it in if I am contributing?"
In June he became the 16th player to score 40,000 first-class runs,
and the following month he agreed another extension to his contract to keep him at New Road for the 2008 season. In 2008, he became the first player to play in more than 1200 games. When he caught Oliver Newby off Kabir Ali at Cheltenham on 30 July, he achieved the rare feat of 1000 catches in a career. He retired at the end of the 2008 season to take up a coaching post at Malvern College
Malvern College
Malvern College is a coeducational independent school located on a 250 acre campus near the town centre of Malvern, Worcestershire in England. Founded on 25 January 1865, until 1992, the College was a secondary school for boys aged 13 to 18...
. During the following winter, he played for the Chandigarh Lions
Chandigarh Lions
Chandigarh Lions was one of the nine teams played in the defunct Indian Cricket League. They were one of the six founding teams and were the runners-up in the inaugural Twenty20 Championship, which was won by Chennai Superstars...
in the rebel Indian Cricket League
Indian Cricket League
The Indian Cricket League was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises that operated between 2007 and 2009 in India...
.
Hick was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours. He said, "I am very honoured with the award. It was not something I expected or set out to achieve. You dream of things and after 25 years it is nice to have that sort of recognition."
Assessment
Hick's inability to replicate in Test cricket on a consistent basis the form which he had shown for his county was and remains the subject of much debate. Steve Waugh, in his autobiography, theorised that county cricket attacks, which Hick regularly "carved up", "were (in fact) a dangerous impendiment to his improvement, because any technical weakness went largely untested", due to these attacks being of a "largely innocuous" nature. Indeed, much of the criticism aimed at him has been on the subject of perceived technical flaws in his game: Atherton felt as early as 1991 that Hick was "good, but not in the Lara or TendulkarSachin Tendulkar
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...
class", and that his technique was flawed, allowing "little give in his hands and no touch in his shots", although by the mid-1990s he had adjusted to an "altogether more fluid and natural" style.
Many writers adjudged Hick, in Christopher Martin-Jenkins' words, "suspect against the short ball",
and Allan Lamb
Allan Lamb
Allan Joseph Lamb is a former England cricketer and captain who played for the first class teams of Western Province and Northamptonshire, the latter as an Overseas player...
felt that the one-bouncer-per-over regulation in force in county cricket
County cricket
County cricket is the highest level of domestic cricket in England and Wales. For the 2010 season, see 2010 English cricket season.-First-class counties:...
in the early 1990s hindered Hick too,
despite the fact that Wasim Akram
Wasim Akram
Wasim Akram is a former Pakistani left arm fast bowler and left-handed batsman in cricketer and model. who represented the Pakistan national cricket team in Test cricket and One Day International matches....
believed that the introduction of a similar rule in Test cricket had been specifically for Hick's benefit.
(Hick's performance in Tests against Pakistan was far worse than against any other nation.)
Alec Stewart's analysis was that Hick "didn't get out all that much" to the short ball, but nevertheless "didn't play it as confidently as other shots", because his height (6'3") made him uncertain as to whether to duck or attack the bouncers
Bouncer (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a bouncer is a type of delivery, usually bowled by a fast bowler. It is pitched short so that it bounces on the pitch well short of the batsman and rears up to chest or head height as it reaches the batsman.Bouncers are used tactically to drive the batsman back on to his...
.
Geoff Boycott famously labelled him as "a big soft lad" due to his perceived weaknesses against the short ball.
Dickie Bird's opinion was that "the positioning of his feet [was] all wrong ... and that [threw] his head and eyes off line".
Hick's mental approach to the game is the other main weapon in his critics' armoury, and indeed Hick himself admitted to seeking psychological help after having failed.
Prior to Hick's England debut Graham Dilley was bullish, claiming that Hick was "a lot tougher than people realise",
but Ian Botham, another Worcestershire team-mate, noticed "the amount of reassurance [Hick] seemed to need from others around him"
and Peter Roebuck
Peter Roebuck
Peter Michael Roebuck was an English cricketer who achieved later renown as an Australian newspaper columnist and radio commentator. A consistent county performer with over 25,000 runs, and "one of the better English openers of the 1980s", Roebuck captained the English county side Somerset...
, in a famous piece in the 1999 Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
, said that it was "Hick's fate to be given an ability that did not suit his temperament".
Jonathan Agnew felt his body language against Curtly Ambrose
Curtly Ambrose
Curtly Elconn Lynwall Ambrose is a former West Indian cricketer. His skill was as a right-arm fast bowler, especially in partnership with Courtney Walsh...
back in 1991 had been poor, and had almost invited his dismissal,
and Atherton wrote that if Hick had indeed failed to do justice to his talent, it was surely "down to a vital missing ingredient in his mental make-up".
Waugh appears to link this 'missing ingredient' to his dominance in county cricket, stating that "prior to his Test debut his capacity to overcome hardship was never called upon". Waugh also cites the aforementioned 1995 declaration by Michael Atherton as a possible reason for Hick's lack of success in Test cricket, stating that "just as Hick's ... gifts were about to re-emerge, in stepped ... Atherton to extinguish the flame."
George Dobell was tougher, stating bluntly that Hick "should have been strong enough to cope".
Some felt that Hick was the victim of poor man-management, and Hick himself let his feelings slip in 2002, when asked who had been his best coach. "That's the trouble," he replied. "There haven't been any."
Shane Warne
Shane Warne
Shane Keith Warne is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet...
felt he was "a classic example of a player who [had] really been messed around",
and Ian Botham complained that when England had failed it always seemed to be "Hicky's neck [that was] the first on the line",
although the journalist Leo McKinstry criticised Botham's "noisy advocacy of Hick in the face of all the evidence".
Ray Illingworth
Ray Illingworth
Raymond Illingworth, CBE is a former English cricketer, cricket commentator and cricket administrator. He was one of only nine players to have taken 2,000 wickets and made 20,000 runs in First class cricket, and the last one to do so...
's treatment of Hick has also come under considerable scrutiny. Botham considered Illingworth to be "totally out of touch with the modern game",
while the 1995 incident mentioned briefly above, when Illingworth told Hick he had "a soft centre" because of his "mollycoddled upbringing", made even Atherton wince at his bluntness.
(Hick, told by Illingworth to "go out and prove [him] wrong", went on to score 118* against West Indies the following day.) However, Illingworth himself, while considering that Hick, along with Mark Ramprakash
Mark Ramprakash
Mark Ravin Ramprakash is an English cricketer, playing for Surrey and England. A right-handed batsman, he initially made his name playing for Middlesex, and was selected for England aged 21...
, was "intense, too much so for [his] liking", did allow that the length of time Hick had had to wait to qualify for England was a factor in his becoming "much more set in his ways than an inexperienced batsman."
Hick's ODI statistics are considerably better than his equivalent Test figures, and his eventual career average of 37.33 is higher than any of Gooch, Thorpe and Gower
David Gower
David Ivon Gower OBE is a former English cricketer who became a commentator for Sky Sports. Although he eventually rose to the captaincy of the England cricket team during the 1980s, he is best known for being one of the most stylish left-handed batsmen of the modern era. Gower played 117 Test...
. Indeed, for a period of more than two years from February 1994 Hick was never ranked lower than tenth in the world ODI rankings, and at the time of his omission from the one-day team halfway through 1996 he was rated number six. Even for the final two years of his ODI career, he was always ranked in the top twenty,
In this form of the game, he could destroy even the best: Andrew Flintoff
Andrew Flintoff
Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff MBE is a former English cricketer who played for Lancashire County Cricket Club, England and the Indian Premier League team Chennai Super Kings. A tall fast bowler, batsman and slip fielder, Flintoff according to the ICC rankings was consistently rated amongst the top...
recalled an innings of 65 against Pakistan at Sharjah
Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium
The Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium is in the emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. It was originally constructed in the early 1980s and has been much improved over the years...
in 1999 when Hick "was murdering" the "seriously rapid" Shoaib Akhtar
Shoaib Akhtar
Shoaib Akhtar is a former Pakistani right arm fast bowler in cricket, who is regarded as the fastest bowler in the history of cricket. He set an official world record by achieving the fastest delivery, when he clocked in at 161.3 km/h in his bowling speed, twice at a cricket match against...
: "If he dropped short, he pulled him and if [he] bowled full, he was driven."
Calls for Hick's recall to the one-day team continued long after his Test career had been given up as a lost cause: Kent captain Matthew Fleming
Matthew Fleming
Matthew Valentine Fleming is a former cricketer who represented Kent and England.Born out of his time, his background was Eton and the Royal Greenjackets, his approach was cavalier. His first 2 scoring shots in first class cricket were sixes.He played 11 One Day Internationals but no Test matches...
said in September 2001 that Hick was "still the best one-day batsman in the country"
and as late as 2004 Andrew Miller would write: "whisper it softly, there is still a case for his inclusion in the one-day squad".
Hick himself still felt in early 2002 that he could "offer more in the one-day environment than the majority of people playing in the side".
Despite his difficulties, Hick's cricketing contemporaries have generally been quite complimentary about him. Atherton "liked and respected" him,
while Andrew Flintoff
Andrew Flintoff
Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff MBE is a former English cricketer who played for Lancashire County Cricket Club, England and the Indian Premier League team Chennai Super Kings. A tall fast bowler, batsman and slip fielder, Flintoff according to the ICC rankings was consistently rated amongst the top...
, as a newcomer to the England side, remembered Hick as "being good to [him] during those early stages [of Flintoff's Test career]".
As a batsman, Allan Donald wrote that Hick was "highly rated by the South African guys".
and Warne called him "purely and simply a quality player".
Steve Waugh said that Hick "had as much talent as any player I ever came across."
David Lloyd noted, not altogether with approval, that other players would rally around Hick protectively, and that "in Alec Stewart he had a man who would champion his cause endlessly".
Stewart himself wrote that Hick was "someone whose talents [he] admire[d] greatly".
Botham summed up the unending nature of the debate when he wrote: "I have no answers. All I can do is wonder how much more English cricket might have got out of Graeme Hick had he been handled differently. I know he does as well."
As for Hick himself, he was asked after the end of his England career whether he considered himself a success or a failure. His answer: "a bit of both".
External links
| Graeme Hick at the Cricket World Cup Cricket World Cup The ICC Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of men's One Day International cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council , with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament which is held every four years... |
|---|