Hick to retire after county season

Former England player Graeme Hick will retire from the game after this year’s stint with Worcestershire in the county season.

One of the most notable features of Graeme Hick's 25-year career is that the huge number of runs he scored will likely be eclipsed by an overwhelming sense of unfulfilled promise in Test cricket.

The 42-year-old Hick announced on Tuesday that he will retire at the end of his 24th county season at Worcestershire which ends this year.

"I felt it was right to finish, I had a feeling at the start of the year that it was going to be my last year," Hick said.

Hick has 41,112 first-class runs with 136 centuries being one of only 25 players to score 100 first-class hundreds in a career that began when he was selected to play for Zimbabwe at the 1983 World Cup. But Hick will always be remembered for failing to transfer that dominance to Test cricket with England.

Hick played 65 matches for England, scoring just six hundreds in 3,383 runs for an average of 31 in a nine-year Test career that ended in 2001. He had more success in one-day internationals, averaging a respectable 37 in 120 matches and helping to take England to the 1992 World Cup final.

But after Hick had become the youngest player to 2,000 first-class runs in a season at age 20 in 1986 and followed that up two years later with the then highest first-class score of 405, his future status as a Test great looked guaranteed.

He made his Test debut in 1991 but never settled following a poor start. Having being selected and dropped 10 times, Hick retired from Tests at age 34 after being replaced by Michael Vaughan in the 2001 series at Sri Lanka.

England batsman Ian Bell said Hicks' legacy was already assured.

"He is a great of the game and has set fantastic standards over such a long time and for me to have been able to watch him close up out in the middle, made me admire his ability even more. He will be held as one of the best to have played the game.” Bell said.

"His whole career has been remarkable and to play for 25 years at the highest level is outstanding."