Cricket: Hick punishes Australians with unbeaten 161: England batsmen makes tourists pay dearly for dropped catches as West Indies' washed-out final Test match ends farcically in sunshine

Martin Johnson
Thursday 06 May 1993 23:02 BST
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Australians 262

Worcestershire 90 and 311-3

ON THE evidence of Arundel, when he was invited to comment on Ian Botham's figures, Lord Ted is nothing if not suspicious, and a couple of dropped catches here yesterday suggest that the England chairman may not entirely rule out a cunning Antipodean plot to get Graeme Hick into the England team.

However, Hick's unbeaten 161 (his 69th first-class century) not only spared Worcestershire the possible embarrassment of a two-day defeat, but also reminded the Australians that they might be required to do a touch more than merely turn up to retain the Ashes this summer.

The fifth anniversary of Hick's 405 not out against Somerset at Taunton in 1988 did not begin entirely auspiciously, as he was dismissed for precisely 400 less during Worcestershire's first innings, when the home side collapsed so abjectly to 90 all out, that they were following on 172 runs behind before lunch.

There were a number of reasons for this - a sporting pitch, a ball rumoured to be one of those occasional 'rogues' with a sharper seam, some decent Australian bowling, but most of all, a batting performance that made England's efforts in India and Sri Lanka appear half-way competent. The only evidence of foot movement, Hick's included, came when Worcestershire's batsmen were required to set off for the pavilion.

Hick himself was snaffled up at first slip sparring a long way from his body at Paul Reiffel, one of three Australian seamers - Brendon Julian and Wayne Holdsworth were the other two - competing for, in all probability, one Test place between them. Worcestershire, whose No 11 Chris Tolley opens the innings for the second X1, allegedly bat all the way down, but in some respects their tail starts after Hick at No 3.

Worcestershire's second innings riposte of 311 for 3 suggests that Mark Taylor might have got it wrong in enforcing the follow-on, but he presumably decided that this was only the sort of pitch worth employing for more batting practice had their next game been a Test match at Headingley. Early vindication of this came when Philip Weston edged Holdsworth into Taylor's accommodating midriff, and with the total on 51, the left-armer Julian was half-way through celebrating a notable scalp when the wicketkeeper, Ian Healy, spilled a regulation catch.

Hick was then on 17, and he was still only 31 when he clipped Holdsworth off his toes to square leg, where David Boon failed to hold a more difficult offering. It was another two hours before the tourists broke through again, by which time Hick and Tim Curtis had taken their second wicket partnership to 189.

It does not seem that long ago since Hick's performance against Mushtaq Ahmed in the World Cup final resembled that of a man with a blindfold wielding a toothpick, but he proved a point or two against the twirly men in India, and his first encounter with the Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne was as one-sided a contest as there will be all summer.

Warne was despatched for two fours and an on-driven six in the space of four deliveries, and when he switched to the other end, Hick's towering leg-side pick-up caused mild pandemonium in the queue for tea and cake over in the ladies' pavilion. In between times, Hick was launching into the seamers with booming front-foot drives and savage cuts, and no one had the faintest idea of where to bowl to him. So far, he has been in for four and a quarter hours, and hit 24 fours and two sixes.

It was the sort of clinical brutality that prompted the former New Zealand off-spinner John Bracewell to label Hick a 'flat track' bully during England's tour there two winters ago, but while there was certainly an element of cuffing small boys around the ear yesterday, this pitch was a long way from being a playground. Whether he can do it against the bigger boys (such as Hughes and McDermott) remains to be seen.

(Photograph omitted)

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