Buzzin Cricket

When Worcestershire take on Somerset in their Twenty20 match later this evening, there will be a record set by Graham Hick. The former England batsmen, if selected, will be making his 1,196th senior cricket match – which will break Graham Gooch’s long standing appearance record.

Graham Hick is 42-years old now and is showing no signs of stopping. In fact, he has two other milestones in his sites as he enjoys his 14th year as a Worcestershire player. Hick requires 1,386 more runs to take him to 65,000 in his career, which would place him in second on the all time list.

The second milestone involves another one of Hick’s talents – slip catching. He has a reputation for a ‘safe pair of hands or ‘hands like buckets’, which ever way you want to put it and the 42-year-old only needs 13 more catches to reach 1000 in senior cricket.

So after what has been a long and successful career in county cricket, Graham Hick could end up breaking a few records over the coming months.

Looking back at his international career, well, in all honesty – he didn’t perform well enough for his talents. Don’t get me wrong, he had his successes representing England, but his test average of 31.32 isn’t really up to scratch. He made six centuries in 65 tests for England and although this is a commendable achievement, he should have scored a lot more – he is a hugely talented batsman who perhaps lacked the required mental toughness at times. A rather frustrating player to watch, as I recall. Simply because I knew he was better than he was showing.

His one-day international record was a lot better. Hick averaged 37.33 during his 120 appearances for England in the shortened form of the game, scoring five centuries and 27 fifties along the way. He was a fixture in the one-day side for quite a few years.

Overall, there is no doubt that Graham Hick has been a loyal servant to the English game of cricket and the records he is set to break reflect this. The next step in his long career is trying to help his county qualify for the next round of Twent20 matches. Considering that he even has two centuries in this form of the game, if you were to bet on Twenty20 cricket, you wouldn’t go far wrong if you backed Graham Hick to be the leading run scorer.