Andrew Mark Jefferson Hilditch (born 20 May 1956,
North Adelaide, South Australia) is a former
Australian cricketer who played in 18
Tests and 8
ODIs from 1979 to 1985. He played for
New South Wales from 1977 to 1981 and for
South Australia from 1982 to 1992. He has been an Australian cricket selector since 1996.
Early career
Hilditch made his
First-class debut for
New South Wales against
Tasmania in
Hobart in February 1977, scoring 5 and 42. Tasmania was not yet in the
Sheffield Shield and the NSW side was mostly full of younger players, including
Graeme Hughes would make his name as a rugby league player for
Canterbury-Bankstown.
Hilditch played a further four matches for NSW in 1977/78 when the NSW side was weakened through the loss of players to
World Series Cricket. He filled in as NSW captain in only his third match for them.
First time in Australian team
The 1978/79 season was the breakthrough for Hilditch, establishing himself as a regular
opener in the NSW side, scoring 778 runs at 45.76. His maiden first-class century came in his birth city of
Adelaide, scoring 124 against
South Australia. He also scored 93 against the touring
England team.
With England leading the six-Test series 4-1, Hilditch was selected to make his
Test debut in the final Test in
Sydney. He scored just 3 and 1 but was retained for the following two-Test series against
Pakistan.
In the first...
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