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Hildreth’s late harvest Somerset’s gain
- Updated: May 25, 2016
Somerset 376 (Rogers 109, Hildreth 68, Trego 65, Murtagh 5-53) and 202 for 7 (Hildreth 85*, Trego 58, Rayner 4-56) drew with Middlesex 423 (Gubbins 109, Robson 99, Stirling 85, Leach 5-77)Scorecard
On May 12, 2004, James Hildreth came out to bat against Shoaib Akhtar in a County Championship match. Akhtar was one of the two quickest bowlers in the world, consistently exceeding 90mph. Hildreth was a slightly built 19-year-old playing the second first-class game of his career.
He promptly scored 101 and 72. It was the performance of a singular talent, and marked Hildreth out as a coming man in English cricket. But, somehow, he has remained there ever since. There has been much to laud in Hildreth’s batting: he is a player of languid class, who has one of the most exquisite cover drives in the land. He has scored runs, and lots of them: 14,039 in first-class cricket, to be exact. These have never, though, been enough to entice the England selectors.
Hildreth has a legitimate claim to being the pre-eminent batsman of his generation never to win international selection: his first-class average of 44.71 is better than any other Englishman established on the county circuit not to win a cap.
But when Hildreth has been spoken about, the discussion is less of the cricketer than the caricature. He has been called artful but flaky, a harvester only on Taunton’s benign tracks, and ropey against the short ball. There have even been whispers that he is a man who prefers the easy life in Taunton to the strains that would come with playing for England.
It is a claim that Hildreth could not refute more strongly. “I get up every day desperate to play for England,” he said after helping secure a draw for Somerset at Lord’s. “The aspiration will always be there. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.”
Neither does he think the other charges against him are fair. In particular, Hildreth is bemused by the suggestion, recycled for years, that he is vulnerable to the short …
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