Former Zimbabwe skipper David Houghton, who is now coaching Worcs, has offered to act as Hick's mentor at this crisis point in his international career. Houghton and Hick have played together, during the day's when the latter was living in Zimbabwe before mov- ing over to England and qualifying to play for that county.

After scoring just eight runs against Pakistan in the recent Test at Lord's, Hick returns to his county for their match at Canter- bury against Kent on Thursday.

Houghton and the Worcs management believes that Hick needs to score piles of runs in county cricket, in order to rebuild his con- fidence. Interestingly, after getting a mere 35 runs in four innings against India during the recent series, Hick was on the verge of be- ing dropped when he hit up his 88th first class century, this time for Worcs against Durham. In the process, Hick became the first player to complete a hundred against every single county in the cham- pionship, and recaptured his place in the England side for the first Test against Pakistan.

``He is a professional, he has a job to do for Worcs,'' said Houghton, who was recently reappointed captain of Zimbabwe following the surprise resignation of Andy Flower.''And Hick's best way to get his England place back is to do well for the county. He has no other route than to come back into county cricket and score as many runs as he can at that level.''