Hick's had enough
"One day I'll just get out of bed and come down to the ground and think 'I've had enough'. Whether that comes in July, August, September or while in a gym in October, who knows, but I've always hoped that's the way it will happen."
That was Graeme Hick on the eve of his 40th birthday, two years and three seasons ago, and his prophecy has proven to be spot-on. Aside from a niggling elbow injury that has hindered his participation this summer, there was no obvious sign that the end -- finally -- was nigh. Had Hick taken guard for one more season in 2009, no-one would have been the slightest bit taken aback, except perhaps the county bowlers who must now be breathing a wistful sigh of relief that their 25-year sentence has been lifted.
There is still the best part of a month of the 2008 season remaining, and with Worcestershire sitting at the top of the second division of the Championship, Hick has the chance to sign off with a measure of the glory that his lengthy service deserves. But win or lose, he will soon be gone, and while those whose judgment derives solely from feats achieved at the highest echelons will size up his Test record and shrug, countless others will rightly mourn the passing of one of the gentle giants of the game.
More than any other cricketer, Graeme Hick has come to embody -- for better and for worse -- the fading magnificence of county cricket, a version of the game that has existed since the early 1800s but whose relevance in this 100mph world of Twenty20 cricket seems to face new questions on a daily basis. But those that live fast, die young, and leave little for the memories. Hick chose instead to slow down and endure -- like a stately galleon, he proved ill-equipped for the iron-clad warfare of modern Test cricket, but his billowing sails patrolled the calmer waters of the shires for a full quarter of a century.
Does it matter that he was found wanting at the very highest level? Of course it does, and doubtless retirement will afford him plenty of time to dwell on the moments that might have made a difference. If only he could have adopted a less cluttered mindset when facing Curtly Ambrose during that traumatic debut series in 1991. If only he could have read the match situation better at Sydney in 1994-95, and hustled to his hundred instead of compelling Mike Atherton to leave him high and dry on 98 not out.
If only the security of the central contract system had arrived ten years earlier, and bonded him to a team ethic that was palpably lacking for much of his piecemeal international career. Whatever the reasons for his shortcomings, the limelight never suited him. Instead the definitive period of Hick's career was not his turbulent decade in and out of the England team, but the 15 languidly brilliant years at New Road that bookended his time at the top. His six Test hundreds are mementoes he'll doubtless treasure, but for his county he scored no fewer than 106 -- out of a grand total of 136 that places him eighth on the all-time list of first-class century-makers.
That list, however, is already a living anachronism. Mark Ramprakash, whose career mirrors Hick's in so many ways (and whose England debut came in the same Headingley Test in 1991) became the 25th man to reach 100 hundreds earlier this season, but the chances of anyone ever emulating that feat are as good as non-existent.
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