In Their Own Words by Steve Dolman

Author:Steve Dolman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2016-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

ALAN HILL was a cricketer’s cricketer, one perhaps best appreciated by the aficionados of the game, as well as his team-mates.

Not for him the flamboyant 20-ball fifty, that has made others of a more recent vintage wealthy beyond their dreams. Alan was more about the century duly completed just before the end of the day. An innings compiled at a steady 20, 30, 40 runs per session, as he built – no, crafted – an innings and ensured that his own side’s total would give the bowlers something to work with.

In style, he was very much a man of the area of his birth. Rough hewn, like the High Peak itself and with nothing especially fancy, he followed in a tradition of obduracy that had been observed by most Derbyshire openers over the years. There were a few more flamboyant types, Arnold Hamer and Kim Barnett the most obvious, but others valued their wicket and lost it with the reluctance of a miser handing over a shilling to a charity box. Thus, Alan followed such names as Harry Storer, Albert Alderman, Charlie Elliott and Ian Hall into the Derbyshire cricketing pantheon. His record was better than all of them.

I watched him many times and I saw myself in him. He was so much better, of course, but as an opening batsman of similar, dare I say attritional style, I empathised with Alan. While others around me were, perhaps on occasion, wanting him to go early so that we could all enjoy the latest edition of the Wright and Kirsten show, I always enjoyed his battles with fast and seam bowling of a standard that had never been seen before in county cricket and never will again.

Alan opened the Derbyshire batting against county sides where almost every team had a lightning quick overseas fast bowler. Sussex had the silky smooth Imran Khan AND the strapping Garth Le Roux to keep you hopping around at either end. There was no respite in such games, nowhere to hide. Only the brave survived.

There were the silky quicks, like Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Dennis Lillee and Richard Hadlee; the powerful ones, like Wayne Daniel, Mike Procter and Andy Roberts; the quick and sometimes erratic ones, like Greg Armstrong, Jeff Thomson and Colin Croft. Plus the downright nasty ones, like Sylvester Clarke. You needed to be alert, have a sound technique and be brave to tackle these bowlers. You had to be a good player to make consistent runs against them at the top of the order.

Alan Hill was just that. He scored over 12,000 runs at an average of 31, with 18 centuries and 65 fifties. He also had four one-day centuries and a good number of half-centuries, to destroy the myth that he was a one-trick pony. He was the Derbyshire Boycott and we loved him for that. Let’s face it, there are many worse names to be compared to.

He retired in 1986 at the age of just 36, having just scored 1,400 runs in his most prolific season of many.

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