Graeme Hick - A Very English Enigma

[BoyBrumby]

Classy article, Martin.

Exactly so. Worthy addition to an already impressive oeuvre.

One thought occured to me regarding Hick's greater success in the shorter format: did he benefit from the "no bouncer" rule that applied at the time? Given his porblems with top class pace (in tests at least) was this a factor?

 

[Son Of Coco]

Exactly so. Worthy addition to an already impressive oeuvre.

One thought occured to me regarding Hick's greater success in the shorter format: did he benefit from the "no bouncer" rule that applied at the time? Given his porblems with top class pace (in tests at least) was this a factor?

Possibly, in the same way Bevan did. I still remember watching Merv give Hick a working over with the short stuff and (usually) coming out on top.

 

[tooextracool]

Absolutely, the same can be applied to Ramprakash, I think he suffered too due to the inconsistency of selection through this period. If these players could have been assured of continued selection while they found their feet, allowed to play their own free-flowing game without the fear of the chop after every innings, then I'm sure they would have gone some way to fulfilling their potential.

I'm not sure if I agree with that to be honest. Ramps got consistent runs in the test side including in his very last test run when he played something like 10 tests in a row and did little other than the isolated test century against Australia at the Oval. If anything Ramprakash was more of an enigma than Hick, Hick was really only given 2 test match runs - one when he was superlative and arguably the best batsman in the side (93-96), but was then ridiculously dropped after 4 poor tests, and another late in his career (2000-2001) where he played something like 10 tests but was pretty much shot by then.

 

[tooextracool]

I still remember watching Merv give Hick a working over with the short stuff and (usually) coming out on top.

So much of a working over in fact that Hick scored 256 runs against him at an average of 42!

 

[Xuhaib]

remember Hick getting a lot of jaffas early in his knock either from Waqar or Mushy.

 

[zaremba]

remember Hick getting a lot of jaffas early in his knock either from Waqar or Mushy.

Indeed he did. And in his debut series he got a fearsome working over from Ambrose.