Hick: the flawed genius

There are many who believe that once a cricketer plays a Test his first-class record becomes irrelevant. Suddenly, all that matters is how he fares in the game's most technically demanding and emotionally revealing format. It is how he performs here at the pinnacle of the game that ultimately defines how good a player he is.

But occasionally there comes a cricketer or two whose achievements elsewhere rise above this theory. Mark Ramprakash, who in August became the 25th cricketer to score 100 hundreds, is one, as is Graeme Hick, who this week announced he will retire from cricket at the end of the 2008 season. Neither batsman fully came to terms with Test cricket but it would be contemptuous to describe either as an underachiever or failure.

Nevertheless Hick, the second-highest run scorer and century maker in the history of top-flight cricket – behind Graham Gooch and Jack Hobbs respectively – must be fed up with attempting to explain the shortcoming. The question even cropped up earlier this week at a dinner to honour and celebrate the 10 living members of the 100 hundreds club.

"I nearly always walked out believing I would do well," explained Hick. "Occasionally there was a little budgie on my shoulder saying it was not going to happen, which is what I fought quite a lot at international level. When I look back there were things I could maybe have done to conquer this, and been emotionally stronger.

"People seem to have seen more talent in me than I actually believed I had, because to me batting was just what I did. In some ways, I couldn't understand why other people did not get scores. I have never thought of myself as someone special – more than I am, just someone who enjoys playing cricket and batting. Maybe if I had have done, had the arrogance to carry that out even more, maybe I would have been more consistent in Test cricket.

"The hardest part of my career was the middle period when I was in and out of the England side. It was difficult to start with because I wasn't English and I was in a foreign dressing room and didn't really know anyone that well.

"The best way of being accepted is to perform well and that didn't happen so I always felt I was fighting. The England players did not know what to make of me either, because I had scored all these runs and they didn't know whether to give advice to someone who had hit 40 hundreds. It made for a very strange playing environment."

There have been more aesthetic batting styles than Hick's, which had a slightly robotic look to it. Big men seldom possess great touch and Hick's strength lay in his ability to put away the bad ball. He possessed the power to hit any bowler for six from a standing position and he struck a cricket ball as cleanly and hard as any modern player. On one occasion a former Middlesex colleague of mine, who had been fielding at cover throughout another Hick hundred, said: "I used to worry about breaking a finger when batting, when he's at the bloody crease I worry about it in the field."

Hick said: "Batting is something I've always enjoyed. Until recently I have always batted at three, and I have always felt the job of a number three is to score a large proportion of the team's runs. I enjoyed the game revolving around me, and the fact that I was the bloke who was going to dictate what happened.

"Batting is about blocking the good balls and hitting the bad ones. It is that simple. I always felt bowlers tended to lose patience quicker than batsmen, and there are very few bowlers who go longer than two or three overs without bowling a bad ball. I never got bored of batting because it was always a better option than bowling or fielding.

"What made me realise it was time to go was that a couple of times recently I had got out and it hadn't really hurt me. It was not that it didn't matter but that the feeling of frustration that comes with getting out cheaply was not the same as it once was."

Of the 62 cricketers I played for England with, Hick was one of my favourites. To outsiders he may have seemed a cold, unemotional man but he cared deeply, more than several English-born players I played with.

To me Hick struggled to crack Test cricket because he was too nice a man. He is a shy, humble, family-loving man. In contrast Test cricket is a fierce arena, a place where any weaknesses, whether they be technical, mental or physical, will be exposed.

I bowled at Hick a lot and I guess honours were about even. I was never fast enough to intimidate him but, as a fairly strong and aggressive bowler, I felt I could impose myself. Hick is not confrontational: had he been, more Test runs would probably have flowed from his bat.

His technique was not perfect. It was slightly stiff and like a lot of big men he struggled against the short ball. Middlesex, at the insistence of Mike Gatting, attempted to expose this once in a championship match against Worcestershire at Uxbridge. What Gatting failed to appreciate was that he had Fraser, Neil Williams and Chas Taylor, not Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. The ball disappeared to all parts as Hick helped himself to another big hundred. It is hard to believe any player will surpass Hick's achievements, let alone those of Gooch and Hobbs.

A lost century

The most contentious moment of Graeme Hick's career came at Sydney during the 1994-95 Ashes. To maintain any hope of regaining the urn England needed to win the third Test, and it was all going extremely well when England took a 193-run first-innings lead.

England extended their lead, mainly thanks to Hick who had moved on to 98. He had spent 10 balls in the nineties before blocking the final three deliveries of a Damien Fleming over. This did not please Mike Atherton, who leapt to his feet and declared, depriving Hick of his third Test hundred.

The team, of which I was a member, could not believe it. We knew that the team's goals should come before that of an individual, but Hick was a popular and selfless member of the side. Instead of being upbeat the dressing room was dead as Hick took his kit off. In the 40-minute session before tea Atherton and Hick fielded next to each other in the slips but neither said a word.

Hick's mood was summed up by a throw from the boundary. I have never seen a ball thrown harder; it went like a bullet. It was the only time I saw him angry. In the evening Atherton knocked on Hick's hotel door to talk. Hick's wife answered only to say that Graeme did not want to see him. The Test ended in a draw and Australia retained the Ashes, but it would be unfair to say that Atherton's decision had a detrimental effect on Hick's career. But a hundred in Sydney against Australia would not have done it any harm.

Angus Fraser

Lord of the hundreds

*Test Cricket

Tests 65 Runs 3,383

Innings 114 Centuries 6

Average 31.32

*One-Day Internationals

Matches 120 Runs 3,846

Innings 118 Centuries 5

Average 37.33

*First-Class Cricket

Matches 526

Runs 41,112 Innings 871

Centuries 136 Average 52.23

Total matches played: 1,213

Total runs: 64,358 (second in all-time list, although Hick lags some 2,700 runs behind the all-time leader Graeme Gooch).

With 1,213 professional matches behind him, Graeme Hick has played in more games than any other player.

Interesting? Click here to explore further