Remember when: Hick's day out

It’s not every day you score 400.

But on this day 26 years ago Zimbabwe-born England international Graeme Hick posted 405 not out for Worcestershire against Somerset in Taunton.

Quadruple centuries don’t come that often, in fact, at the time it was the highest county score in 93 years and bettered only once since by Brian Lara’s 501 not out in June 1994. 

If scoring 400 was impressive enough, the next best score was only 56 by wicketkeeper Steve Rhodes. Hick and Rhodes put on 265 for the sixth wicket, incredibly more than 200 belonging to the recently appointed head coach of Australia’s National Cricket Centre. 

Despite the vast disparity between the best and next best score, Hick recalls the wicket to be more placid than poisonous.

“It was early on in the season, the first or second four-day game we played and we lost three or four early wickets but then we seemed to push through,” said Hick, admittedly foggy on the events two and half decades ago.

“I had some good partnerships with the late to middle order in Rhodes, Illingworth and Newport. 

“They were all decent middle-order players, and I think I put on a hundred with each of them. 

“They were required to do a job that was literally to rotate the strike, put away the bad balls, survive the good balls if they got them, and that difficult part [early in the innings] sort of went. 

“It wasn’t the hardest wicket to bat on, we just lost a few early wickets and then we just got on a roll.”

Flat or tricky, Hick made the toiling home attack pay, scoring at more than 86 runs per hundred balls faced during his nine-hour stay at the crease. 

Taunton’s short straight boundaries were too appetising for the fit 21-year-old, dieting on Somerset spin and seam for 35 fours and 11 sixes, but Hick says the shackles only came off for the last quarter of his stand.

“I didn’t really tee off until the last hundred,” said Hick, who reassessed his innings whilst in the late 290s. 

“The Worcester record was 311 by Glenn Turner, so that was my goal. 

“The skipper said we were going to declare at tea so we had about 30-45 minutes, and once I passed that I decided to have a go and the last 88 came pretty quickly I guess.  

“But it was a pretty steady sort of innings on a good surface.”

Still three years away from qualifying for his adopted country, Hick had the year prior decided to represent the three lions at international level and set about racking up the runs before his inevitable selection.

Already with a double century at Old Trafford (the next best 68), Hick’s ability to amass big scores and occupy the crease came from the enjoyment of batting if nothing else, never more prevalent in his 569-ball stay.

“I never had any problems concentrating. I think I managed to switch on and off quite easily between deliveries.”

“The longer I was at the crease the more enjoyable it was. I’ve always been physically fit, running everyone else’s runs just as quick as my own.

“When you’re on 200, that’s the best time to bat.”

When asked what the opposition were like in the field, and if any extra effort was employed to throw him off his game, Hick summed it up like one of the looping half-volleys he banished to the boundary. 

“Normally they’re pretty quiet when you’ve got 300 on the board.”