have been watching as much cricket as i could since 84, including the time frame you have mentioned. hick was very poor against genuine pace bowling. he was not good enough to succeed at the highest level. if he were, he would have. he could plunder the medium pacers and dibbly dobblers in county cricket.
But he was good enough to succeed, and did - just not for all that long. If he was a no-hoper against bowling of the highest pace he'd not have stood a chance of massacring bowlers like Hughes, Reiffel, Donald, de Villiers, McDermott, Ambrose, Bishop, Walsh, Kenneth Benjamin and Pollock (who was certainly fast in 1995/96 if not for very long thereafter). Yet for 4 years he did little but. He'd also never have had a hope of scoring 188 or whatever it was in 1988 against Marshall, Ambrose, Winston Benjamin and Walsh.
There is truth in the notion that Hick was vulnerable to top-class seam (not neccessarily of the highest pace, it was just top-class seam bowling) early in his Test career - he struggled against Ambrose, Marshall, Walsh and Patterson in 1991 and Wasim, Waqar and Aaqib in 1992. But if one had watched Hick's career and read-up on him, they'd realise that he then modified his technique - he subsequently as I say smashed heaps of runs against top-class bowlers. He disposed of his vulnerability to top-class seam at high pace in about 1993.
After his period of success he then fell down and from 1996 onwards did next to nothing of note at Test level. Yes, this does count as a mark against him and does mean that he cannot be described as having anything but a pretty poor Test career. But the idea that he
could not and
did not succeed is plain wrong. Because he did, and he did so for long enough to show beyond all reasonable doubt that he had what it takes technically. What held him back was temperamental failings and abysmal handling from selectors. To group him with the likes of Nick Knight and John Crawley, excellent batsmen against lesser-quality bowling and no-hopers against the best, is plain wrong, because he was so much better than that.
but international cricket was one step too high for him, like it is for mark ramprakash now.
Also the notion that
international cricket was a step too steep for him is plain wrong - even the most arrant Hick-hater couldn't possibly deny that in ODIs he was a consistently quite superb player. Only mastery of Test cricket was beyond him - as it was for his Australian equivalent Michael Bevan, who like Hick really didn't get a fair crack of the whip.