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Loading ...He may not have been the most relaible Test batsman, but he was and is one of the greatest ODI batsmen you’ve ever had. I remember in the tri-nations series down here (is it really 10 years ago?) when he kept pace brilliantly with Jayasuriya, Gilchrist and the Waughs, and I believe that he scored his highest score in that series from no. 3. So that should also be mentioned- if you had a few more like him in your ODI sides over the last five or so years, you’d have been very wel off indeed.
Hick’s retired
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of September Add your comment below
I’m sure you already know that Graeme Hick has retired. If you don’t, then you’re either crying or rejoicing. Me? I’m just relieved, I’m ashamed to say.
You see, I’m still bitter. I spent my youth watching this man fail at international level: six hundreds in 65 Tests is an appaulingly meagre record. And yet every year, it seemed, he’d be recalled for another go. Briefly he’d shine, clobbering Shane Warne over midwicket; in a growling voice of shared frustration, Bill Lawry would say “Yeeeees, see? That’s the way you deal with the spinners, the half-trackers. Whack it over midwicket”. Australians could not understand how “this guy” was so inconsistent.
In truth, actually, Australians were rather more confused why he was dropped so often. And they (Steve Waugh) also wondered why Devon Malcolm played so little, but that’s a dull story for another day.
These Hicky moments of ecstasy were all too brief, depressingly so. Here was someone so good as to be compared to the very greats of the game; who dominated county cricket like no one thought possible at such an early age. And his first-class record is sickeningly brilliant. Yet whenever I heard he’d bashed another ton for Worcestershire, I felt nothing but anger, blessed readers. Another missed opportunity; another sodding English enigma. Think about it. If all these names were on song during the nineties, we would have been unbeatable: Atherton, Stewart, Hick, Thorpe, Ramprakash, Hussain (and others). What a lineup.
Anyway, Hicky’s outta here. Apologies for the grumble, but what are you going to do about it?
Tags: graeme-hick |
4 Responses to “Hick’s retired”
September 3rd, 2008 at 12.12 am
September 3rd, 2008 at 12.11 pm
[...] of Uncertainty: Another View. Tags: graeme hick, wccc, [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 2.02 pm
I’m personally sad that he’s retiring, even at 42. I always enjoy watching him bat.
Although he and Ramps had loads of opportunity to shine in tests they weren’t helped and nutured in the way that some players of precocious talent sometimes need.
The way players were handled at the time they arrived on the England scene belonged to another era.
A more enlightened set-up, would I’m sure, had bought the best out of a young Hick or Ramprakash.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2.58 pm
It drew a tear to my eye. He was my childhood obsession, as I say in my blog, I wonder how he’d have faired in todays more family like England dressing room.
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