Action Replay
Richard Edwards looks back on Graeme Hick’s thumping 405 not out against a hapless Somerset attack in 1988
Graeme Hick’s 405 in 1988
It’s May 5, 1988, and the nation’s press is focused purely on two figures at Taunton. The prematch headlines concentrate on the ongoing spat between Ian Botham, now with Worcestershire, and Peter Roebuck, the Somerset captain.
The pair had fallen out in spectacular fashion over the decision to axe Joel Garner and Viv Richards from the Somerset roll-call in the winter of 1986, and comments from Roebuck in the run-up to an otherwise innocuous county fixture had fanned the flames that had been flickering violently for the best part of 18 months.
The name of Graeme Hick – a 21-year-old batting prodigy – has rarely featured in the pre-match coverage. All that, though, is about to change.
Fast forward to the second afternoon of the match and the falling out between two of English cricket’s most controversial characters is no longer a story. The narrative of this match is based almost entirely on one of the most extraordinary batting performances ever witnessed.
Frank Watson, who was working for the Cricketline phone service at the time, wrote a book on that Worcestershire season, chronicling the rise of a Zimbabwean who would soon be carrying the hopes of English cricket – despite him being three years away from qualifying for the national team.
Taking centre stage in a season that would end with Worcestershire being crowned champions, was Hick’s prodigious performance at Taunton over two days that Watson still recalls vividly.
Joining Tim Curtis half an hour before lunch on the opening day, Hick scored 31 out of a partnership of 32 in the run-up to the break, giving an indication of both his mood and the kind of form he found himself in at the time.
“I don’t think I had seen him play better than he did in that short period,” Watson tells The Cricket Paper.
“The beginning of the game was focused entirely on the enduring feud between Roebuck and Botham. It wasn’t Botham’s first game back at Taunton because he had been back there the previous season, but Roebuck had done a TV interview on Richards and Garner and Botham leaving in a huff before the game. Some of those quotes were taken out of context. At the beginning of the game that was what all the attention was about.
“I wrote that a couple of days later news hounds from all parts were descending on Taunton and they weren’t remotely interested in either Roebuck or Botham.”
Instead their dictaph ones were pointing solely in the direction of the boy from Bulawayo, who had just scored the second highest score in English cricket’s first-class history – a blistering 405 not out that saw Hick’s batting assume almost mythical proportions.
The records that he overtook on two sun-drenched days in the West Country took up almost a page in The Times the following day. Not only was it the highest score since Archie MacLaren’s 424 for Lancashire against Somerset, again at Taunton in 1895, Hick had also surpassed Worcestershire’s previous top score of 311, by Glenn Turner against Warwickshire in 1982.
His partnerships for the sixth and eighth wicket with Steve Rhodes and Richard Illingworth were county records. The pair’s contribution, though, was mainly limited to watching and admiring Hick’s brutal assault from the non-striker’s end.
No doubt enjoying the sight of Somerset’s bowlers being smashed to every conceivable inch of the Taunton outfield, Botham was unequivocal in his praise for his team-mate.
“I cannot imagine you will see a greater innings by anyone,” he said.
Hick’s effort was made all the more remarkable by the fact that Worcestershire had found themselves 132 for 5 midway through the first afternoon. By the end of the first day’s play, Hick was 179 not out.
Few could have anticipated what was to come on day two.
His partnership with Rhodes moved past 200 in the morning before the now Worcestershire coach was out for 56, out of a partnership of 265. By lunch Hick had scored 257 and was within touching distance of Turner’s Worcestershire record. With that record duly chalked off in the afternoon session, he then went from 312 to 405 in just 46 balls.
“That would be par for the course now but back then that was unheard of,” says Watson. “He was knackered as well.”
As Colin Dredge prepared to bowl the last over before tea, Hick found himself on 392. He then drove his first ball straight for six before cutting Dredge for a single to bring his 400 tantalisingly close. A single from Illingworth on the fourth ball brought Hick back onto strike. Standing at the end of his mark, Dredge must have been aware of what was coming. True to form, Hick smashed the ball into the crowd at mid-wicket.
With no local radio at the ground, those not at Taunton were frantically dialling Cricketline to hear Watson deliver the only live commentary on Hick’s effort. BBC Hereford and Worcester, meanwhile, were frantically putting their microphones on the end of the phone in an attempt to bring the historic moment to their audience.
“I can’t remember what I said when he got to 400, I really can’t,” he says. “I know I was the first person to interview him, though. The hilarious thing was that Worcestershire were sponsored by one of the first mobile phone companies at that time. I can just remember seeing him on the outfield at the end of the day’s play holding the biggest phone you had ever seen, it wasn’t so much a brick as a breeze block.”
Hick was unmoved, believing his 212 against Lancashire at Old Trafford just weeks before to be a better knock. His room-mate, Damien D’Oliveira joked to Worcestershire colleagues that the pair’s bedroom was ‘full of runs’, despite D’Oliveira having got a duck on the first afternoon. He then ordered Hick every national newspaper the following morning to celebrate an achievement which had put the Zimbabwean on the front and back pages.
With Hick closing in on 1,000 runs before the end of May, England’s selectors were salivating at the prospect of selecting him in 1991. Somerset’s bowlers, meanwhile, had seen enough of him to last a lifetime.
Hick’s effort was all the more remarkable by the fact that Worcestershire had been 132 for five midway through the first afternoon