Graeme Hick international career

[Owzat]

Looked at the list of bowlers who dismissed him the most in Test cricket, this is definitely borne out. Ambrose Walsh Younis Donald and at very low averages

11 Curtly Ambrose
8 Courtenay Walsh
7 Waqar Younis
6 Kenny Benjamin, Allan Donald
4 Ian Bishop, Stuart MacGill

Was bowled 25 times, 14 times by the above combined. The argument was he was bowled too often for a #3 and that's fair enough, but obviously he was the man to get out and personally not sure there's much more kudos being LBW to a ball any more than shame being bowled by a good bowler - 7 of the 25 times he was bowled it wasn't a quick anyway, spinners including Jayasuriya once and pop gun Afridi twice

mostly he was out to pretty good bowlers, not many trundlers or below average bowlers - some might count eg Warnaweera, Eksteen, Nkala, Owens, (Dipak?) Patel, Su'A, Chris Pringle and Wickramasinghe as such but out of 108 dismissals that's not a high proportion of duffers even if you count them all as such

 

[Owzat]

Graeme Hick [65 Tests, 3383 runs @ 31.32, 23 wkts @ 56.78. 90 catches]

averages by opposition (brackets)
35+ vs Australia, India, South Africa, Zimbabwe
27-34 vs New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West Indies
U20 vs Pakistan (15.77)

averages by consecutive Tests
1-5 Tests : 715 runs @ 21.03
6-15 Tests : 2668 runs @ 37.06

batting position
#3 : 35 inns, 1141 runs @ 34.58
4-5 : 51 inns, 1488 runs @ 31.00
#6 : 14 inns, 496 runs @ 38.15
7-8 : 14 inns, 258 runs @ 18.43


hung out to dry, pushed down by nightwatchmen or simply daftly batted at #7 he struggled, drags his average down near two runs alone - as does his average against Pakistan.

it is VERY clear the correlation between consecutive Tests and his average, 11 consecutive produced 608 runs @ 43.43, 15 consecutive produced 1077 runs @ 46.83. All other runs produced averages between 10.71 and 25.63 bar one run of six Tests where he did manage 45.75 :

vs IND (3 Tests 92/93) : 1, 25, 64, 0, 178, and 47
vs SRL (only Test 92/93) : 68 and 26
vs AUS (1st and 2nd Tests 1993) : 34, 22, 20, and 64

He came back in the 6th Test with 80 and 36

The 1-5 doesn't do the ridiculousness of his treatment justice, 1 Test played once, 3 Tests in a row twice, 4 Tests in a row three times. I suspect his head was shot latterly, if not early career as well, targeted, dropped/injured so frequently. After his last ton, 101 vs Zimbabwe in 2000, he played 10 more Tests, never repeated that feat, 277 runs @ 14.58 with one fifty and the maybe infamous 40 he scored in the dark of Karachi

his average, as I think I said in a previous post, did hit near 40, 39.32 after his 141 in the rain affected series in South Africa 95/96. If you break his career into three stages, the latter as above

Tests 1-13 : 397 runs @ 18.90 (50 x2)
Tests 14-55 : 2709 runs @ 39.84 (100 x6, 50 x15)
Tests 56-65 : 277 runs @ 14.58 (50 x1)

There was a good batsman for England, hidden in the middle, starting in the middle of the Test series in India 92/93 and ending pretty much against his 'home country' of Zimbabwe in 2000 at the "home of cricket". Ironic really his last fifty was against windies and batting #8, 2nd top scorer in the innings. Same opposition in 93/94 he was joint 2nd top scorer in the infamous 46, albeit with 6 and technically 3rd if you count extras! Made 40 in the 1st innings, England were 167/4 when he was LBW to Walsh, England bagged a lead but windies had enough time that famous last session of the day to reduce them to 40/8, irony there with all the talk of how often Hick was bowled that he wasn't but Stewart, Smith and Thorpe all were


Before ODI cricket hit silly heights in terms of totals, averages and SRs I'd certainly have him in the squad for England best ever, 37.34 average with bat, SR 74.09 which given totals of 250 could be quite tough to chase half his career and a 34.20 bowling average and 64 catches in a format that didn't have 3 slips and a gully too often. Tests, well it would be hard to include him bar I would probably for a team of the 90s but more on ability than his stats

 

[Owzat]

oh and an article I read, probably Wisden and I may have it around somewhere albeit don't think it has a cover on it, the author was citing his inconsistency at county level approaching the point he was becoming eligible for selection and high expectations. They cited one big score with single figure scores either side of it, like 7, 4, 300, 5 kind of thing

dropping someone like that every few Tests isn't a way to get the best out of them, chances are you're dropping them for a Test they may well have scored big in - not that you get to find out

 

[peterhrt]

This a great post, though I'm confused by the line: "In my opinion, Hick was the Colin Blythe of the 1990s - his failings at Test level were simply the result of an inability to handle the pressure and intensity of Test cricket."

Blythe was by all accounts a sensitive soul, and suffered from epilepsy which may have been worsened by the pressures of Test cricket. But it didn't overly show on the pitch - his Test career was very successful.

Until 1906 Blythe was only selected for England when Rhodes was unavailable. Rhodes was the better bowler at this stage.

Blythe was preferred for the home series against South Africa in 1907 and did well. Both played in the first Test in Australia that winter before Blythe fell ill and missed the rest of the series. He suffered from nervous exhaustion, sometimes lasting for days after a game.

In the first Ashes home Test in 1909 Blythe and Hirst bowled England to victory with Rhodes only having one over in the match. For the next game at Lord's Blythe's doctor ruled him out on the grounds of "strain on his nervous system...It is desirable that he should have a temporary rest from his work". He was back for the fourth Test, taking seven wickets, then wrongly left out in the fifth when 37 year-old googly bowler Douglas Carr and Woolley made their debuts. Rhodes was also playing.

All three left-arm spinners went to South Africa that winter for a five-match series on matting, Rhodes and Woolley primarily as batsmen. After variable form in warm-up games, Blythe was only chosen for the last two Tests. He took ten wickets at Newlands in his final Test match.

With googly bowling the new sensation, finger spin went out of fashion. Warner wrote in 1911 that an ideal attack was one fast bowler, one right-arm medium, one left-arm medium and two googly bowlers. He named his ideal combination as Lockwood (now retired), Barnes, Foster, and the South Africans Vogler and Faulkner. England didn't have any good fast or googly bowlers then so relied on Barnes and Foster. When finger spin was required on a wet pitch, all-rounder Woolley filled the role. Blythe was the best bowler in county cricket during the three seasons before WW1, but England did well enough without him.

 

[Aidan11]

The media were bigging Hick up from the start but when he hit 400 in a county game expectations rose even higher.

He had no chance really

 

[The Sean]

Until 1906 Blythe was only selected for England when Rhodes was unavailable. Rhodes was the better bowler at this stage.

Blythe was preferred for the home series against South Africa in 1907 and did well. Both played in the first Test in Australia that winter before Blythe fell ill and missed the rest of the series. He suffered from nervous exhaustion, sometimes lasting for days after a game.

In the first Ashes home Test in 1909 Blythe and Hirst bowled England to victory with Rhodes only having one over in the match. For the next game at Lord's Blythe's doctor ruled him out on the grounds of "strain on his nervous system...It is desirable that he should have a temporary rest from his work". He was back for the fourth Test, taking seven wickets, then wrongly left out in the fifth when 37 year-old googly bowler Douglas Carr and Woolley made their debuts. Rhodes was also playing.

All three left-arm spinners went to South Africa that winter for a five-match series on matting, Rhodes and Woolley primarily as batsmen. After variable form in warm-up games, Blythe was only chosen for the last two Tests. He took ten wickets at Newlands in his final Test match.

With googly bowling the new sensation, finger spin went out of fashion. Warner wrote in 1911 that an ideal attack was one fast bowler, one right-arm medium, one left-arm medium and two googly bowlers. He named his ideal combination as Lockwood (now retired), Barnes, Foster, and the South Africans Vogler and Faulkner. England didn't have any good fast or googly bowlers then so relied on Barnes and Foster. When finger spin was required on a wet pitch, all-rounder Woolley filled the role. Blythe was the best bowler in county cricket during the three seasons before WW1, but England did well enough without him.

I remember reading that he was in and out of the side more often than might have been expected owing to the competition at the time, no doubt exacerbated by the pressure he felt owing to his temperament and his illness. My point was more regarding the comparison with Hick regarding failures at Test level - even allowing for the aforementioned issues, Blythe didn't experience too much failure on the cricket field and his Test record was outstanding.

 

[Chubb]

He was badly managed but I don't think all that time in county cricket helped. His personality is also quite diffident, from what we see of him. Very uncomfortable on camera, hates interviews, so silent in the Amazon documentary it became a meme. No idea what he's like behind the scenes.

 

[AndrewB]

it is VERY clear the correlation between consecutive Tests and his average, 11 consecutive produced 608 runs @ 43.43, 15 consecutive produced 1077 runs @ 46.83.

Unless I've done something wrong in Statsguru, his average in 15 consecutive Tests (Aug 1993 to Jan 1995) was 43.08, not 46.83.
He then missed the last two Tests of the 1994-5 Ashes through injury, came back for the first 3 Tests the next summer and averaged 22 - so in total that's a run of 20 Tests in which he missed 2 due to injury, and his average was 38. He was then (somewhat harshly) dropped for one Test.

Recalled for the following Test, he scored 118* and 7, then 96 and 51*, then 141. As a result, he was picked in all of the following 8 Tests (when you'd assume his confidence was higher) and averaged 18.

 

[slowfinger]

Because test cricket is a completely different game to county cricket, and it's always been an issue in developing proper test players. County cricket has hardly any fast bowlers, it's mainly 70mph swing and seam bowlers dominating greentops. Hick was great at playing those, but struggled on the flat test pitches where the bowlers were 15mph faster.

thats bullshit though, because do you think there is something fundamentally genetically different in the reflexes for someone that is able to face 90 mph as compared to someone that can comfortably play bowling in the region of 75-80 mph?

doesn't seem like a good explanation to me

also not all test bowlers bowl 90, majority are 82-87

 

[chris.hinton]

Hick was badly managed

In this day and age he would perform better 31 ave wasn't good for a man of his obvious talent. My favourite player of all time. Loved him playing for Worcestershire

 

[Anil]

The pressure and expectations based on his 1st class cricket achievements may have taken its toll but to me, the fact that he couldn’t handle the pressure is a negative when considering how he is rated. He was obviously quite talented but to go from someone touted as the best since Bradman before he played a single test to someone averaging in the low 30s by the end, he has to be one of the most overrated players at test level in the history of the game…