Graeme Hick - Assessment

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 Tendulkar 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 all wrong ... and that 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 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 really been messed around", and Ian Botham complained that when England had failed it always seemed to be "Hicky's neck 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 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 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 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 during those early stages ". 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 admire 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".