Graeme Hick joins elite club of centurion cricketers

By PETER MARTIN

THE Worcestershire and England all-rounder, Zimbabwean-born Graeme Hick, 32, recently joined an elite band of cricketers when he became the 24th batsman in cricket history to score a century of centuries in first-class cricket.

His 100th century came in the county championship match between Worcestershire and Sussex at Worcester. Hick scored two centuries (104 and 132) in the match, only the third occasion in his career he has managed that rare feat.

On reaching his second century, the Worcerstershire CC president, David Graveney, brought out glasses and a bottle of champagne to the wicket to celebrate the milestone.

The recently retired Essex and England batsman, Graham Gooch, was the last player to reach 100 centuries -- in the 1992-93 season.

Hick's fine batting was not enough to earn him a recall to the England side, however, and it is now two seasons since he last represented England in a Test.

Only Sir Donald Bradman (295) and Denis Compton (552) have reached 100 centuries in fewer innings than Hick, whose 574th innings it was. He is also the second youngest to reach the goal with the former England captain, Wally Hammond, at 31 years 359 days beating him by a matter of two weeks.

Leading the list of century-makers is the legendary Surrey and England opener, Sir Jack Hobbs, with 197, half of them scored after his 40th birthday. Hobbs' record has stood since he retired in 1934 and if Hick continues playing for another decade or so, he will be the only contemporary batsman in world cricket able seriously to challenge Hobbs' long-standing record.

Hick currently has the best first-class average of current batsman -- over 55 runs an innings.

Hick started his career as a precocious 18-year-old who scored many centuries in school and Zimbabwe league cricket. He went to England in 1984 on a Zimbabwe Cricket Union scholarship and spent that summer playing for Worcestershire's second team, making one appearance in the county side.

On the short Zimbabwe tour of England in 1985 he established himself as a batsman of the highest class with an innings of 230 against Oxford University, his maiden first class century.

With Zimbabwe still not awarded Test status Hick decided to qualify for the England team and some strings were pulled to enable him to represent England at Test level, seven years after his first Worcester appearance. He made his Test debut against the West Indies in 1991, but failed to distinguish himself with a total of 75 runs in four Tests (ave 10.71).

Fully expected to be the batting saviour of England, he found that the continuous fast, short-pitched bowling was not to his liking at all and the lanky Leewards fast bowler, Curtly Ambrose, dismissed him in six out of seven innings and it took Hick some time to establish himself as an England regular.

In 1988 he had amassed the highest score in England this century when he took 428 off the Somerset attack. This score has since been eclipsed by West Indian batsman Brian Lara's 501 for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994. Hick's huge score helped carry him to the noteworthy feat of scoring 1 000 runs before the end of May, a rare feat indeed.

Only two batsmen, Hick and New Zealander Glenn Turner, have been able to reach this target since the Second World War.

Hick's ambition now is to return to the England team as a number four or five batsman. He has scored two centuries against South Africa in Test cricket -- one at home in 1994, when he and Thorpe were England's best batsmen, and a fine century in the first Test at Centurion on the 1995-96 tour.