Former Aussie quick Mick Lewis backs George Hill for England
MICK LEWIS has described George Hill as “one of the most skilled players I’ve ever worked with” and believes he should be “in the mix for England”.
Lewis, the former Australia fast bowler and current Yorkshire bowling coach, has put Hill in the same bracket as some of the modern game’s finest bowlers.
"He's right up there with Scotty Boland, James Pattinson, Sam Cook, Jamie Porter, Shane Snater," said Lewis of the 25-year-old Yorkshire all-rounder.
"I mean, they're all pretty good, but he's right up there as well and just as good as them."
Boland, with whom Lewis worked during his time as head bowling coach at Victoria, has taken 82 wickets in 19 Tests at an average of less than 19, including 20 wickets in last winter’s Ashes series.
Pattinson, another Victorian, took 81 wickets in 21 Tests, while Cook, Porter and Snater have given excellent service to Essex, where Lewis was bowling coach before joining Yorkshire prior to last season. Cook has also played Test cricket for England and Snater has represented the Netherlands, emphasising the company in which Lewis places Hill.
“He should be in the mix for England, I believe,” Lewis added. “He’s just an all-round package and a serious athlete.
“I think he’s scored over 600 runs this year, taken 40-odd wickets and held 14 catches at first slip, or whatever it is.
“I know they talk about pace for international cricket, but you need a skill element as well, and George is one of the most skilled players I've ever worked with.”
For the record, going into Thursday’s final game of the season against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, Hill tops Yorkshire’s County Championship run-scoring, wicket-taking and fielding charts - a remarkable treble.
He has scored 686 runs at 34.30, taken 45 wickets at 18.57 and also held 15 catches, the most by an outfielder.
He is closing in on 50 Championship wickets for a second successive season as calls intensify for further recognition.
So far, that has been confined to one England Lions appearance, with Lewis seeing growing signs of self-belief in his game.
“I think George has kicked on because he’s starting to believe that he’s good enough,” Lewis said.
“Last year, he took 52 wickets, from memory, and he was sort of like, ‘well, I can’t believe it’.
“But now he’s a serious cricketer, he's a serious bowler, and the amount of skill he's got, as I said, is up with the best I've worked with.
"I think he took a lot of belief out of last year, and I think that's just grown into this year. Some of the spells he's bowled for us this year have been unbelievable.”
Hill’s rise comes against the backdrop of a demanding summer for Yorkshire’s seam bowling department.
Navigating a busy fixture list while managing key absences - including Australian international Jhye Richardson and several junior pacemen who suffered early-season injuries - has needed careful planning by the coaching and medical teams.
Hill, along with Ben Coad, Jack White, Ben Cliff and Matty Revis, has stepped up to form the nucleus of a seam attack that could potentially challenge for the title.
Any loss of Hill to England would be a blow to that aim, but there is depth to the line-up and scope for improvement.
“They’re still young, and they’re still learning,” said Lewis of the bowling collective.
"Obviously, the experience of Jack (White) and ‘Coady’ (Ben Coad) is there, but when you've got people like ‘Cliffy’ (Ben Cliff) coming through now, and then also you've got young Jay Singh, Matty Firbank, Brad Sylvester, Isaac Bepey coming through as well, Charlie Taylor, it’s exciting.
“A lot of those guys have had injuries, long-term injuries, but they're the ones, the next crop, coming through.”
For Lewis, establishing a Championship-winning attack needs depth and competition.
Yorkshire want hungry bowlers capable of stepping seamlessly into the first XI; they recently added James Taylor ahead of next season, a 25-year-old from Surrey.
"I mean, he's another guy who just wants an opportunity," said Lewis. "And I think we've shown in ‘Cliffy’ that if you get an opportunity and you perform, you'll play.
“So, James Taylor is bringing competition to the other guys, to Cliff, to Coad, to White, and that’s what we want.
"We want healthy competition and guys who want to be the best they can be.”
Lewis added: "You need a good crop of six to eight fast bowlers that can win you a Championship, so anyone can come in at any time.
“We're not far away. You want serious competition for places, so you want no one to ever feel safe in the side.”