Clem Hill, born March 18, 1877, was one of the greatest batsmen produced by Australia and one of the game’s most memorable characters. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the life and career of the man who held the world record for the highest aggregate of runs in Test cricket for 22 years.
More than three 90s and a few punches
He may have answered to last name Hill, but many of his feats in cricket were nothing short of Himalayan.
It is an aberration of history that people seldom remember this great batsman today. If some do, it is more often than not because of the associated trivia of three consecutive 90s in Test cricket, or the stimulating, non-cricketing anecdote of the famous fisticuff with a fellow selector.
Serious adherents of the history of the game may still remember him as a batting giant of his day, but sadly it is almost always prefixed by the qualifier ‘other’ or ‘second’.
Yes, his days as a Test cricketer overlapped those of the nonpareil, dashing and debonair Victor Trumper. The aesthetic beauty of Trumper’s batsmanship often put his efforts in shade and his limitations in limelight.
Yet, Clem Hill was too good a batsman to be described as just a contemporary of Trumper. In Test cricket, Hill’s record was in fact a shade superior. And his domestic numbers are in fact better than that of the New South Welshman.
In his day, Hill notched up records with metronomic regularity, and it generally took the proven run making machinery of Don Bradmanand Bill Ponsford to go past the milestones he set up. Yet, the game of cricket remained just a game to him, not a vehicle for immortality. He enjoyed playing, enjoyed his time with his mates, and they in turn revelled in his company. He could be determined, could even be moved to blows as Peter McAllister quite painfully found out. Yet, he was genuinely playful, sympathetic and kind in his dealings, universally popular among his fellowmen, carrying about him the heart-warming and infectious joy of cricket.
With his crouched stance and propensity to play cross batted back foot strokes more frequently than the elegant eye-pleasing drives of his era, Hill was perhaps not the favourite of the romantic. Yet, when he passed away in September 1945, some obituaries bestowed on him the title of the greatest left-handed batsman ever. That was quite a tribute, surpassing men like Joe Darling, Frank Woolley and Warren Bardsley. But, perhaps the laurel was deserved enough to rest justly on his noble head until men like Neil Harvey, Garry Sobers, Graeme Pollock, Allan Border and Brian Lara arrived on the scene.
Additionally, just as the old century was changing into the new one, there were quite a few who thought Hill was the greatest batsman of the day, regardless of right or left-handedness.
Born into cricket
It seems that fate had earmarked Hill for cricketing greatness. He was born in Adelaide on March 18, 1877, on the rest day of the first ever Test match. Thus he notched up his first record, an unbeatable one — the first Test cricketer to be born after the start of Test cricket.His father John Hill was the proprietor of the family business as mail contractors and coach operators. John Hill and Co Ltd. possessed over a thousand horses working across South Australia and beyond.
It was an intensely sporting family. Clem Hill was one of 16 siblings, eight brothers and eight sisters. Six of the brothers represented South Australia in cricket, and three played football for the State. Both these numbers included Clem.
As for old John Hill, running a business of thousand horses and fathering 16 children did not really manage to occupy him full time. He was also the first man to score a hundred at the Adelaide Oval while playing for North Adelaide against Kent — 102 not out in January 1878, when Clem was just about ten months old. His coaches often carried the visiting England cricketers from venue to venue, and ground to hotel. Later John Hill became the Vice-President of the South Australian Cricket Association.
As a child, Clem was different from his brothers as the only left-hander in the family. And he was a precocious talent, someone who maintained the air of child prodigy for most of his career. Indeed, a startling fact about Clem is that in those days dominated by bushy beards and handlebar moustaches, he remained clean shaven throughout his career. This was one trait he shared with Trumper.
The child prodigy
The prosperity of the family enabled Hill to be educated at Prince Alfred College, one of the two major public schools of Adelaide. And there his batting feats turned many a head. At the age of 13, he appeared in the annual match against arch-rival St Peter’s College.
Nine days after his 16th birthday, Hill’s batting for his college got him a call up for South Australia. It was just after the end of the inaugural Sheffield Shield season of 1892-93. With most of the regular players away in England, Hill was chosen as a wicketkeeper batsman.
He did not really shine in this game against the newly formed First-Class side of Western Australia. He got a golden duck, missed a catch off the express pace of Ernie Jones in the very first over and let through 14 byes. This match resulted in Hill giving up wicket-keeping, fearing that Jones’s furious deliveries would damage his hands.
The next summer, Hill did not play First-Class cricket. However, he piled up 360 against St Peter’s before retiring out. At that time, this was the highest score in any cricket match played in Australia. However, his school coach threatened to drop him because of hogging the strike and for relentlessly hooking balls from outside the off-stump.
Soon established names like George Giffen counselled him to moderate his hook shots. During the course of his career, Hill did keep his hooks in check, but only by a fraction. It was too productive a stroke for him to stifle.
In 1894-95, Hill began the season by being selected as 12th man for South Australia against Andrew Stoddart’s Englishmen. However, John Noel injured his hand and the 17-year-old youngster ended up playing the game, scoring 20 from number 10.
When the state side met Victoria in Melbourne, Hill played his first innings of substance, scoring 33 on a difficult wicket as the team was skittled out for 118.
And then came Stoddart’s men again. This time Hill batted at number eight against a supreme bowling attack consisting of Tom Richardson, Bobby Peel, Johnny Briggs and Bill Lockwood. He walked in at 124 for six and counter attacked with merry abandon to reach 63 by stumps.
The next morning he received the unfortunate news that he would have to keep wickets. Affie Jarvis had crashed his carriage on the way home. Hill reacted by whipping all the English bowlers, remaining unbeaten on 150. Thus, at the age of 18 years and 11 days, he became the youngest Australian to score a First-Class hundred. He held the record till Archie Jackson went past him three and a half decades down the line. After this innings Giffen, who had recently become the captain of Australia, wrote, “Hill is a boy who will not spoil himself.”
Hill enrolled in engineering while continuing to bat with consistency. He hammered 206 not out against New South Wales, again becoming the youngest to score a double hundred at 18 years and 348 days. It remained an Australian record until Norman Callaway broke it by 27 days in 1915.
The attack of New South Wales included the great Charlie Turner. And more importantly, the bowling line up also contained Tom Garrett, one of the selectors for the 1896 Ashes tour. This innings earned Hill selection for the Rest of Australia side against the designated Test team to tour England. In the second innings of this match, Hill hit 74. The selectors left out captain Harry Trott’s brother Albert and included young Hill in the side. Perhaps due to age, or late selection, or both, the agreed arrangement was that Hill would not be paid the full rate as the others on the tour. He was engaged at £200 plus expenses.
Playing for Australia
The tour to England was not remarkably successful. Hill made his Test debut at Lord’s at the age of 19 years and 96 days. He managed just six runs in the two innings, playing on in the first innings and bowled off his pads in the second. He also committed the unforgivable crime of dropping WG Grace at long on.
His form in the Tests remained unimpressive. However, he did score a hundreds against Derbyshire, a match saving 65 against MCC and a superb 118 against Surrey. During the course of the last innings he ran an eight — helped by two overthrows. Harry Altham later wrote in hisHistory of Cricket that Hill in 1896 was “already a master of footwork and the on-side strokes, though not yet as strong on the off as he would become.”
On their way back home, the Australians played in North America. Hill was still too raw and Bart King’s poison tipped deliveries proved to be his undoing. He gained experience but could not swell his collection of runs.
It took another Stoddart’s team to convert a prolonged run of inconsistent scores into uniform brilliance. When the visiting England side of 1897-98 met South Australia, Hill came in at No 3, a position that would be his own from then on. He batted for four and a half hours, flawlessly, against Richardson, Briggs, George Hirst and JT Hearne, and amassed a chanceless 200. Cricketdescribed the innings as ‘in every way deserving of the highest praise.’
In the second innings of the first Test at Sydney, Australia followed on. In the second innings Hill scored 96. It was Joe Darling, a fellow alumnus of Prince Alfred College and another southpaw, who scored 101 in the knock. It was the first century in Test cricket by a left-hander. Hill failed to become the second by four runs, but this was a signal of things to come. The two left-handers would go on to be thorns in the side of England. And Hill would become celebrated his many 90s.
He went on to score a patient 58 in the second Test at Melbourne. In the third at Adelaide, his first Test at home, he scored 81 in just 98 minutes. In the course, he added 148 for the second wicket with Darling.
It was in the fourth Test, once again at Melbourne, that saw Hill finally get his long awaited first Test century; and he made it a big, big one. On reaching 50, he created a record by being the first man to play four consecutive fifty-plus innings in Test cricket. He was dropped at the wicket off JT Hearne at 65, and went on to hit 188. It remained the highest score by a left-handed batsman before Hill himself broke it to score 191 in 1910-11. The record passed hands when Warren Bardsley amassed 193 not out in 1926.
The innings was remarkable in many respects. None of the other top seven batsmen passed 12 in the innings. It was 58 for six when Hill was joined by Hugh Trumble with Richardson and Hearne bowling at their best. Trumble scored 46 and the two added 165. Another 60 were added with wicketkeeper JJ Kelly.
The 188 was definitely the best ever innings played till then, and very few knocks of a similar quality have been played since then. The 188 was scored out of 282 while he was at the crease, and lifted Australia to 323. England lost by eight wickets. And as Australia rattled off the required runs, Hill became the first batsman to score a hundred and a duck in the same Test.
He ended the season with 124 not out against Stoddart’s side for South Australia, taking his tally of runs to 1196 for the summer. It had been a dream season.
One of the best in the world
When Australia toured England in 1899, Hill began strongly in the Tests. He compiled a neat 52 and splendid 80 at Nottingham, before being dismissed by a fine catch at point by the 50-year-old WG Grace playing in his last Test.
And at Lord’s, the only Test to produce a result in the series, he scored 135, exactly the same as Trumper, the two ensuring a huge lead and ultimately victory for Australia. However, Hill’s tour was cut short. Early in June, he had begun to suffer from an ulcerated throat. A small growth was detected at the back of the soft part of the palate. An operation had to be performed. Hill was soon back on the ground, and this resulted in a relapse of the inflammation. Hill played only four more matches on the tour after the Lord’s Test.
But, back in Australia he did not take much time to recover. With the proposed South African tour cancelled because of the Boer War, Hill spent his time at the crease for South Australia, hammering 365 not out against New South Wales at Adelaide in December 1900. It was the highest innings in a Sheffield Shield match and also the second highest score in all First-Class cricket after Archie MacLaren’s 424.
When England visited in 1901-02, it was for the first time that Hill came up against Sydney Barnes. The great bowler took his wicket in both innings when England played South Australia, but not before Hill had scored 107 and 80. It was the start of a rivalry based on mutual respect. Hill was dismissed by Barnes 14 times in the 18 matches they played against each other. However, the bowler acknowledged that Hill was the toughest batsman he had ever bowled to.
This was the series that saw Hill score 99 at Melbourne and 98 and 97 at Adelaide. Both the Melbourne act and the double 90 at Adelaide proved to be match-winning. A measure of how the left-hander played the game can be deduced from his dismissal in the first innings at Adelaide. Missed by Jones at slip when 92, Hill hit Len Braund hard and high and was caught by Johnny Tyldesley on the boundary. The fielder wanted the catch disallowed because he had taken it with one foot on the Oval’s perimeter cycling track. However, Hill insisted that the track was within the boundary and walked away. In the second innings, the scorecard shows that he was bowled by Gilbert Jessop. However, Jack Pollard later wrote that it was his bat rather than Jessop’s ball which dislodged the bails, and he should have been hit wicket.
Hill followed up the three 90s with 87 in the final Test, yet another valuable knock in a low scoring win. As a result he finished with 521 runs in the Tests without scoring a hundred.
That great summer and the World Record
The tour that followed was the great 1902 summer of England, four months of sublime cricket amidst horribly cold and wet conditions. It was Trumper’s tour all along, and he batted with spectacular majesty on the sticky puddings, scoring 2,570 runs during the visit. No one came close, but Hill was the first among the others, with 1,534.
It was probably this tour during which Trumper comprehensively overshadowed Hill, thereby influencing the opinions of the great English chroniclers whose opinions generally went down as documented history. Many argued that Hill’s batting lacked the solidity, and it was easy to get his wicket. He was not the player of 1899.
There was indeed a rushed approach that led him to be stumped quite frequently on the tour. Many of his forays at the wicket were brief. However, after two rained off Tests, in the only Test match ever played at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, Hill hit a century in murky light and on a difficult wicket. It went a long way in ensuring the Australian victory.
In the thriller at Manchester that followed, Hill scored a brisk 65 after Trumper had raced to his century before lunch. And then, with eight runs required for England to win, wicketkeeper Dick Lilley hit Trumble hard and high on the on-side. According to the report of ‘Country Vicar’: “It looked like clearing the ropes. The spectators roared their appreciation. They watched the ball sailing through the air they hardly saw Clem Hill racing along the boundary. Flying ball and flying fieldsman converged. The big Australian ran on, so fast was he travelling that he could not stop for twenty yards. But the ball never reached the ropes. Clem Hill held it. He made the catch at top pace, in his stride, with one hand.”
There remains some confusion about the last part. CB Fry later said that Hill took it with both hands. Lionel H Brown vouched for one hand, adding that he summersaulted twice. Hill himself remembered diving for the ball after setting off with no intention of catching it. Lilley simply told him, “Oh Clem, what a bally fluke.” However, the catch was made and the game was soon won in the pitiable climax to Fred Tate’s Test career.
In 1902, five different players held the Test record for highest number of career runs. Arthur Shrewsbury had led the field when the year started. During the first few months, Syd Gregory went past Shrewsbury, Joe Darling overtook Gregory, and MacLaren raced past Darling. During the Sheffield innings, Hill went past MacLaren, and then it was a tussle between the two. After the final Test at The Oval, Hill had 1562 to MacLaren’s 1543, while Gregory and Darling trailed with 1465 and 1402 respectively. After the tour, Hill would hold the record for another 22 years.
In 1924-25, Jack Hobbs went past him to become the new record holder. It is said that Hill was not really aware of his feat. When Hobbs broke his record, it was left to the wife of the Surrey batsman to remind the Australian sitting nearby that he had held the top position till a few moments ago.
Coming back to 1902, on their way back, Australia played their inaugural series in South Africa. Hill enjoyed himself with scores of 76 and 142 in the first Test and 91 not out in the third. When he reached 31 in the final innings, Hill became the first ever player to register 1000 runs in a calendar year. This feat would not be emulated for 35 years. In 1947, Denis Compton would top 1000 Test runs during his annus mirabilis.
In clouds and in sunshine
There followed a period of trough. The 1903-04 visit of England did not produce anything remarkable other than another missed century. The 1905 series in England, Hill’s final tour to the country, saw him play some fine innings, including 181 against the strong CI Thornton’s XI. However, he had quite a miserable time in the Tests.
The tour had one highlight though. During the course of the 115 against Hampshire, Hill became the highest run-getter in First-Class cricket for Australia. He would hold on to his position at the top of the list till the end of his career.
The 1907-08 visit by England brought forth perhaps Hill’s most heroic performance. He started the Test series with 87 at Sydney in a narrow two wicket victory. England drew level with an even closer one wicket triumph at Melbourne.
The focus now shifted to Hill’s home ground of Adelaide. The Test began and ended with Hill suffering from influenza. His brother Roy Hill substituted for him in both the English innings. In the first knock, he came in at No 7 and Barnes dismissed him for five.
In the second innings, Hill walked out at No 9. Australia trailed by 78 in the first innings and were ahead by a mere 102. The batsman at the other end was debutant Roger Hartigan, the first Queensland player to represent Australia. The temperature soared over 40 degrees. Hill was sick beside the pitch on more than one occasion. He was dropped by Barnes at mid-off when he was 22. And thereafter, not one chance was offered. Hill batted through the fourth afternoon and into the fifth day. He added 243 with Hartigan and then another 78 with Sammy Carter before falling for 160. It was a heroic effort, the most difficult five hours he ever spent at the crease.
But, by now dark clouds were brewing for long. The tussle between the players and the recently established Board of Control was gradually taking an ugly turn. The bone of contention was the money made on the tours. To keep a handle on the amount, the Board insisted on appointing their own vice-captain and manager. Hill, a tour selector by now, decided to make himself unavailable for the 1909 tour of England. The decision was mainly due to dissatisfaction with the terms put forward by the board — especially the appointment of board member Peter McAllister as the vice-captain.
Captain Hill
The next assignment was against the South Africans in 1910-11. Percy Sherwell’s team arrived with the exciting battery of googly bowlers. And Hill, the longest serving Australian cricketer, was now appointed the captain of the home side.
It was largely Hill’s idea to hit the South African wrist spinners into submission. And he himself showed the way. On the first morning at Sydney, Australia went to lunch at 147 for one after 90 minutes of batting. The two left handers, Hill and Bardsley, had taken the game by the scruff of the neck. And between lunch and tea, Hill scored 95. He jumped out to drive almost everything, and decided the course of the series in that single session. Bardsley and Hill added 224 in two-and-a-half hours. Finally, the captain was castled by the occasional bowling of Ormy Pearse for 191, scored off 200 balls in 200 minutes. It was scintillating stuff.
In the next two Tests, Trumper scored 159 and 214 not out. And in the fourth Test, Hill amassed exactly 100 in the second innings. Australia routed the visitors 4-1.
The Big Six
At this juncture, the battle between the Board and the players intensified. After the problems of the 1909 tour to England, the Board had compromised by providing the players the authority to pick their tour manager and selectors for the overseas matches. However, even as the Englishmen toured Australia in 1911-12, the stage was set for the Triangular Test tournament to follow in England in the summer of 1912. The Board, especially chairman William McElhone, could not let go of this opportunity to wrest control. Devious machinations were at work.
Through a rigged election, the unpopular McAllister was appointed a selector for the home Tests alongside Hill and Frank Iredale. And on December 31, 1911, the former rules were reversed, giving the Board autonomy to select the manager for future overseas tour.
As a result, Hill and five other senior players indicated that the Board should reconsider the decision, failing which they would withdraw from the tour. The group of dissenting players — Hill, Warwick Armstrong, Tibby Cotter, Vernon Ransford, Trumper and Carter — were termed ‘The Big Six’.
And now, just before the third Test of the series, Hill let it be known that he wanted to include Charlie Macartney and Jimmy Matthews in the places of Bill Whitty and Roy Minnett. McAllister refused to agree to the inclusion of Macartney. He sent across a telegram to Hill which said, “If Iredale agrees, I favour yourself standing down and not Minnett.”
Understandably, Hill was annoyed by the suggestion. The Test at Adelaide was played with Minnett and Matthews in the side. Hill, playing his last Test at his home ground, scored 98 and a duck. England won their second successive Test to take a 2-1 lead in the series.
When the selectors met on February 2, 1912, to select the team for the fourth Test, an incensed Hill gave voice to what he thought about McAllister asking him to step down. McAlister responded by taking pot shots at Hill’s captaincy during the last two Tests. In response, Hill told him in no uncertain terms that “he was no judge of cricket.”
Heated words were exchanged during which McAlister claimed that he himself had been as good a captain as Armstrong, Trumper and Hill himself. Hill became sarcastic, suggesting that perhaps McAlister would like to captain the side himself, making his opinion about McAlister’s credentials abundantly clear.
It was now that McAlister claimed that Hill was “the worst captain in living memory”. It was the proverbial last straw. Hill stood up and said, “You’ve been asking for a punch all night and I’ll give you one.”
After this, as in most brawls, accounts vary. Some said that Hill delivered a slap to the face, while others maintained that the blow was much harder. The altercation lasted for almost 20 minutes, and at one point Hill had to be physically restrained from hurling McAlister out of the third-storey window!
Most accounts agree that Hill won the bout, and as he walked out of the room, McAlister, on the floor and bloodied, yelled: “Come back and fight, you coward.”
Quite amazingly, the selection meeting continued after Hill left and returned to his hotel. The news of the fracas was predictably lapped up by the newspapers, but even more incredibly Hill was retained both as player and captain.
Hill was given a resounding ovation as he went out to bat at Melbourne. However, with the incident perhaps weighing him down, he lost his form and Australia were defeated in the final two Tests of the series.
As the Board refused to budge from their stance of selecting the tour manager, the Big Six — Hill, Trumper, Carter, Cotter, Ransford and Armstrong — did not tour England in 1912. Of these men, only Carter and Armstrong played Test cricket again.
Hill in retrospect
Hence, Hill’s Test career came to an end in a rather unfortunate manner. In 49 matches, he had amassed the then record 3412 runs at an average of 39.21 — remarkable for those times. He had managed seven hundreds and six scores in the 90s.
Hill continued to play Sheffield Shield and even turned out in a handful of matches after the First World War. At the age of 47, he came out of retirement to captain the Australian XI for the benefit match of WP Howell and scored 40 against New South Wales.
In all First-Class cricket he scored 17,213 runs at 43.57 with 53 hundreds.
Hill was of medium height and a powerful build. He held the bat extremely low down on the handle and had a Jessop like crouch as he prepared to face the bowling. As he moved into the stroke, the crouch disappeared, and he was notable for the quickness of his feet. Elliot Monfries, the wicketkeeper who stood behind Hill for Victoria and during club games in Adelaide, estimated that a third of his strokes were made when standing outside the crease.
According to CB Fry, “His success depends less upon obedience to strict canons of style and more upon a full development of a natural way of dealing with bowling of every kind.”
He was not of the David Gower or Frank Woolley school of visually delightful left-handers, but neither was he of the Phil Mead, Warren Bardsley type of stodgy stonewaller. Perhaps the most appropriate parallel would be Allan Border.
By various accounts, Hill was remarkably cool and self-possessed, looked to thrash the bowling given the merest opportunity, yet watched every ball closely.
Initially a superb on side player, he could place even straight balls through the gaps. In doing so, he seldom missed the ball to be dismissed leg before. He would hook shorter balls with a quick horizontal motion, hands close to his body, the wrists brought heavily into play. The hook would often be played with glee from outside the off-stump.
With time, Hill also developed into a fine off-side player, with severe square cuts and a chopped late cut. When he drove, he did so with power, often dancing down the wicket, the timing impeccable. Johnny Moyes wrote, “He revelled in the faster stuff, which he hit with explosive power. The sound of the bat on the ball was like a crack of the whip, the result as striking. Fast bowlers could make the balls lift quickly on the fast pitches from a good length, and when one watched Hill crashing their thunderbolts past mid-off or through the covers it gave the same sensation as watching the most vivid of lightning.”
He had a sound defence as well, and was an excellent batsman on true hard wickets. But on softer pitches of England his methods often did not bear fruit.
As a fielder, Hill was quick-footed and often outstanding. His throw was accurate and fast, resulting in frequent run outs.
However, of his proficiency in the other department of the game, Sydney Morning Herald wrote, “Clem Hill, the champion batsman, bowls a sort of long hop straight up and down.”
The man within
As a person, Hill was of a generous nature, who carried his cheer and joviality into the field. He always had time for a joke or two even when he was the captain. According to Monfries, he was “happy-go-lucky, breezy, full of fun.” Whenever a band on the ground would play a lively tune, Hill could never remain motionless and focused on the game.
While playing hard, he was seldom without sympathy. He even apologised to Jack Hobbs after running him out for 94. If a player was morose on dropping a catch, he would often engage in a little step dance or some other tomfoolery to draw attention away from the unfortunate.
It was perhaps his genuine concern for the players that made him take up cudgels against the Board. And whatever the outcome, he did not regret it.
After giving up cricket, Hill served as a selector alongside Jack Ryder and Herbie Collins. He courted controversy on picking South Australia’s Arthur Richardson for the 1926 tour of England ahead of Vic Richardson and Alan Kippax. The omission of Charles Kelleway also led to some ill-feeling.
After this Hill never acted as a selector again. He returned to the Board in 1935, but never again picked a side.
In absence of cricket, Hill took up tennis and bowls as his favoured sports. However, his second career was in horse racing — and he was appointed as a stipendiary steward to the South Australian Jockey Club and the Adelaide Racing Club. He later became a handicapper, one of the top three in Australia. He was appointed as a handicapper at Victoria Amateur Turf Club (VATC) at Caulfield.
Hill had married Florence Mary Clewer in 1905, and his wife had accompanied him on the tour of England. There she sometimes gave a tough time to scorer Bill ‘Fergie’ Ferguson, claiming her notes did not match his scores.
It was the death of Florence in 1937 that saw rapid deterioration of Hill’s health. After his fifth Caulfield Cup, he resigned his post with VATC and took up the less demanding job of ha ndicapper for the Geelong Racing Club in New South Wales.
In the winter of 1945, Hill was accidentally thrown from a tram in Collins Street, Melbourne, and died a month later. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography records, he had been suffering from a heart disease.
In 2003, the South Australian Cricket Association named the new southern grandstand at the Adelaide Oval the Clem Hill Stand. In 2005, Hill was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2005.