Why George Hill faces an uphill battle for higher honours

Jonny Bairstow has never been one to pull punches, and when England announced their squads for the Lions' white-ball tour to West Indies on Friday, he threw a haymaker in the ECB's direction.

"Absolute joke!" he roared on his Instagram story, referring to the exclusion of his Yorkshire team-mate George Hill. He added for good measure: "England are hardly blessed with people that can swing the ball, bat well and be a jet in the field!" It was typical Bairstow, and epitomised Yorkshire's wider frustrations that their talented young allrounder is being ignored.

Bairstow cited Hill's record in the County Championship this summer: he was Yorkshire's highest run-scorer (748 at 34.00), leading wicket-taker (48 at 18.39), and took 15 catches, including a one-handed worldie off his own bowling against Surrey. His numbers in 50-over cricket - the relevant format - did not stand out to the same extent, but were still solid enough.

England are clearly not blind to Hill's talents. He took match figures of 5 for 120 on his debut for the Lions against India A at Wantage Road in 2025, and has captained the Under-19s. He even played a minor role in England's famous win at Headingley in the 2019 Ashes, running on a replacement bat for Ben Stokes to use during his remarkable 135 not out as 12th man.

Yet when Hill went to Australia last winter, it was not with the Lions but for a training camp in Melbourne, led by his county bowling coach Mick Lewis. He has become a cause célèbre not only in Yorkshire, but among county cricket fans who feel as though the Championship's outstanding performers deserve greater recognition from England.

Across last week, 39 players were awarded an England contract (30 on full central contracts, nine on development deals) and a further nine were included in Lions squads. Hill's name did not feature in any of the lists, while players with far more modest records - his Yorkshire team-mate Matthew Revis, for one - were included on attributes rather than averages.

The ECB would argue that is very much the point. The Lions programme is not designed to reward the players with the best county stats, but to identify future international cricketers and to help them improve. There is a balance to strike between potential and performance, but England must pick players they believe can make the step up to international level.

Hill's main obstacle to that is his pace, or lack of it, even if he seems to have found an extra gear of late. He hardly plays T20 cricket and joked this month that he tries to "stay away from the speed gun as much as I can", but his top speed in his one televised game this season - Yorkshire's Blast quarter-final against Somerset - was 79mph/127kph, per CricViz.

For all of Ollie Robinson's recent success at a similar speed, England have partnered him with bowlers capable of hitting 90mph/145kph in Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue, rather than the skill of Sam Cook or Matthew Fisher. And given Hill typically operates as a change bowler, it is not obvious where he would fit into England's Test attack.

"I know the talk is [that] he's not quick enough," Gavin Hamilton, Yorkshire's director of cricket, told the BBC last month. "I'm not having that. He bowls early 80s [mph] - can bowl quicker - and he bowls as quick a bouncer as anybody around… Just because he doesn't swing it around trees and bowl it at 90mph, you're still allowed to have other skillsets and he has them all."

Hill's own description of his bowling is simple: "I literally try to run in as hard as I can every ball, try to whack the wicket, wobble it down. If it nips, it nips; if it doesn't, it doesn't." He also bowls from beyond the perpendicular, creating a natural angle into right-handed batters which draws them into playing at balls that shape away from their outside edge.

He described his 2025 season with the bat as a "stinker", averaging 22.10, but he managed six Championship half-centuries this summer, including a match-winning 89 against Somerset. His ambitions next year must include a promotion to bat higher than No. 7, and adding to his four previous first-class hundreds.

Perhaps he also needs to convince two of his Yorkshire team-mates to push his case. Hill used to live with his close friend Harry Brook, who was two years above him at Sedbergh School - "He's still the chubby idiot I knew from school," Hill said recently - while Joe Root's return to the Test captaincy makes him an influential voice in England selection.

Marcus North, England's national selector, encouraged Hill to "keep banging the door down" while speaking on talkSPORT last week after a "super impressive" season, and he will surely feature when the Lions name their squad for their two four-day games in South Africa in December.

That will be Hill's chance to show that he deserves higher honours after all - and to vindicate Bairstow's broadside.