Biography

Described as a “great nursery for the game of cricket”, the Millfield School bred yet another extraordinary cricketing talent in James Hildreth, among many others. A right-hand batsman and an occasional seamer, Hildreth represented England at all age-group levels, including the Under-19 World Cup of 2003-04 in Bangladesh.

With a solid background of age-group cricket, Hildreth made a promising start to his career as he debuted for Somerset in 2003, and a year later, went on to score his maiden first-class century. His team-mates at Taunton rated him as an exceptional cricketer, including his captain, Justin Langer. Despite a dream start, Hildreth couldn’t convert his talent into consistency and his average was anything below 40. But in 2009, he refused to be written off as he put up a monstrous, unbeaten innings of 303 against Warwickshire at Taunton.