Graeme Hick - Back To The Struggle

Back To The Struggle

Hick seemed set fair for another productive season in 1996, 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 was in severe pain from a chronic back problem (ankylosing spondylitis). 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 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.