HICK: I'D LOVE TO COACH AT COUNTY LEVEL

Richard Edwards talks to England legend Graeme Hick on his rather unusual route to the top

- Richard Edwards

When Justin Langer broke the news to Graeme Hick that he had lost his job as a batting coach as a result of Cricket Australia budget cuts, Langer likened it to facing Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh without a box.

Those bowlers who toiled against Hick in county cricket will know exactly how he felt.

For almost 20 years, Hick was a peerless presence in domestic four-day and one-day cricket, with his 405 not out against Somerset at Taunton for his beloved Worcestershire in 1988 one of the great County Championship innings of the last century.

Peter Roebuck once wrote that, such was Hick’s dominance throughout that innings, that at times it felt as though the Somerset bowlers were trying to knock down a tank with a pea-shooter.

Had Hick known about Hanif Mohammad’s then world record score of 499, it’s quite possibly that he could have carried on and re-written the history books. As it was, his score remains a number uniquely associated the Zimbabwe-born run machine.

That he didn’t know of Mohammad’s record should come as no surprise. Speaking to The Cricket Paper