Third Test: Hick recall reopens old debate (3 August 1999)

3 August 1999

Third Test: Hick recall reopens old debate

Mike Beddow

Graeme Hick is happiest and most fulfilled in the pastoral charm of New Road. Like Elgar, he has composed many of his memorable scores alongside the River Severn: his own rhapsodies of pomp and circumstance.

Perhaps this is because he is a country boy at heart, not born to Worcester but the son of a tobacco farmer in Zimbabwe. Of all England's first-class cricket counties, Worcestershire is probably as close as he could get to home.

It is a tranquil area, pubs along the byways with real beer and scrumpy cider. The Vale of Evesham at blossom-time would strike a chord with his father's later occupation as a rose-grower.

Every now and again he is taken out of this time-warp to play Test cricket for England, as he is likely to do at Old Trafford this week. And with each recall, the criticism bites harder: "Oh dear, not Hick again!"

He has been too polite to shout his pain or publicly address what must be simmering anger. The closest he has come was in a BBC Hereford and Worcester radio interview last Sunday. A lot of people in the press, he hinted, would like him to fall.

No England player, whether flawed or not, should have to carry such a cross, whether misconceived or not, into a Test match. To put it mildly, Hick's friends at Worcester are incensed.

They would ask that a changing England set-up, with a new captain, and soon, a new coach, should make a greater effort to integrate the most prolific county batsman of his generation.Michael Vockins is one such voice. Not only as Worcestershire's secretary but as a curate who officiated at Hick's marriage.

"If Graeme feels part of the scene, he has a lot to contribute," he said. "I was thrilled he was made vice-captain for the trip to Bangladesh last October because that is exactly the way to get the best out him. He needs to know he has a role to play."

Hick's Test average of 34.40 does not sit easily with a county figure in the high 50s, and yet his international record is not as bleak as detractors would like to make out.

For a period of three years, covering two series each against Australia, South Africa and West Indies, he averaged around 45. Some would say the selectors acted with indecent haste in ditching him after a double failure against Waqar Younis at Lord's in 1996.

A two-year exile was not entirely wasted. Worcestershire saw him as captaincy material, a position he is likely to inherit next summer, and there were other matters: his 100th first-class century last season and a benefit this year.

His game-plan has changed. "He was very much a front-footer, always at the bowler with a big stride," says his team-mate Steve Rhodes. "Now he is back in the crease a little more, a more careful player who builds an innings. But if they bowl short at him, he'll murder them because he's ready for the pull or cut."

The common thread is that he has scored runs against the best bowlers in the world in county cricket but not always in the Test arena. Which begs this question from Rev Vockins: "Is it about Graeme or the way he has been handled?"

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)