The Lost Enigma

Graeme Hick is one of the strangest cases in world cricket. Instead of being the savior for the Zimbabwean cricket team, he decided to ply his trade for England and had to wait for ages and finally after 57 first class centuries, he finally made a debut for them against West Indies, a match which also saw another flawed genius Mark Ramprakash making his debut. Both dints make much of an impact but the seeds were sown for what turned to be a career of unfulfilled promise which was originally said to be that was supposed to be compared to the Don himself. If not for his test career, he would have still been considered the greatest ODI player for England in the 90s. Only 3 Englishmen who have played more than 100 games averages more than him. Had he decided to play the waiting game like Andy Flower, well it could have been a different story altogether and with no fear of being dropped; Hick could have always been the partner at the other end that Flower always longed for. Though he may be 40+ now, he stills destroys county line-ups at will and could dismantle any bowling line-up on his day. He still could be of some use to England. He could be the ideal No. 7 as he can still belt the ball as good as any other cricketer and his off spin is as good as Dalrymple. Yes he got lot of chances but again, he was always under the threat of being dropped and this got into his head badly. Zimbabwe loss was England’s gain but never once did they utilize him properly. His greatest movement would have been the Carlton & United Series in Australia during the 1998/99 season. He smashed 3 centuries and amasses over 500 runs in only 12 games.