HAPPY HICK BORN AGAIN DOWN UNDER

TWO former run machines who never quite made it at the highest level could be found putting the current generation through their paces in this corner of north Queensland yesterday. Graeme Hick, 51, and Mark Ramprakash, 48, boast a combined 76,771 first-class runs and 250 hundreds between them but are still considered the nearly men of English cricket. They both played more than 50 Tests in the 80s and 90s but their figures barely do their talent justice, with Hick hitting six centuries while averaging 31 and Ramprakash managing just two and averaging 27. In their current roles in rival Ashes camps, Ramprakash yesterday bombarded the England batsmen with short balls from his ‘dog stick’ thrower ahead of today’s final warm-up game here in Townsville, while Hick is Australia’s batting coach. Hick, decked out in his Cricket Australia garb as coach of England’s opponents here, agreed, a little reluctantly yesterday, to address his past. ‘We don’t have to go back on all that, do we?’ he sighed. ‘We’ve got an Ashes series to look forward to. Yes, it will be interesting to catch up with Ramps and chat to him about what his ideas on batting are now. We’ve got some common ground.’ Some scars may remain for the Zimbabwean who, in his England qualification period with Worcestershire, almost looked set to become the new Don Bradman. When asked if his international career now seemed a distant memory, he said: ‘Fortunately, yes! I can sleep at night these days! I had great opportunities and loved what I did. Central contracts came in as I was going out but I’m not someone who looks back and says, “If only”. Why would I have regrets? It’s for me to deal with and I’ve dealt with that myself.’ But is there one thing you know now you wished you’d known then? ‘Do you want the honest truth?’ smiled Hick. ‘I wouldn’t have listened to the media as much as I did!’ Hick has lived for six years on Queensland’s Gold Coast and now considers it home. He is far more contented than the often tortured batsman struggling to live up to his early billing as a child prodigy. And he sleeps better too.