The following season he only played 10 games, scoring only 188. There were plenty of people that doubted that he would make the grade. However the next season (2001) he began to find his form and confidence. He scored 786 runs in that season averaging 39. His first hundred came at Oxford in the opening game of the season (something he was to do again a few times in his career). His first Championship hundred followed fairly shortly after at The Walkers Ground, Southgate scoring 139 from 246 balls including 17 x 4s and 3 x 6s against Derbyshire. His first century at Lord’s came late on in that year scoring 120 against Durham.

By now he had cemented his place in the team, sometimes opening the batting or coming at five. Over the next couple of years Ben scored plenty of runs, 941 @ 40 with four hundreds in 2003, the year he was capped and in 2004 passing 1000 runs for the first time, scoring 1129 with an average of over forty, including 5 hundreds. At end of that season he was discussed at length by the selectors regarding going on an England A tour, but just missed out. That sadly, was the high point of his career.

In 2005 he replaced Andrew Strauss as captain, in his first match as skipper scored a defiant 76 not out in Middx second innings to take us safely to a draw against Notts. After that though his form hit the buffers, scoring only 93 runs in his next 8 innings. Thanks to a 111 v Cambridge though he regained his form ending up with 1010 runs at 34.82 including two hundreds, one of which was to be his highest score, 152 v Kent at Canterbury. The low point of that season was after he put on 45 with Ed Smith for the first wicket against Sussex, then watched as the next 6 batsmen all got ducks as Middx were bowled out for 162 thanks to Chris Peploe’s 42.

After he scored his 152 the next game was the one at the Oval which saw Middx just survive relegation. However the next season saw Middlesex relegated from both the Championship and the One Day League. In that year Ben was to play only 11 matches due to his Shingles illness, not playing at all between mid June and the end of August. Although he scored a 105 in his comeback match at Scarborough, a total of only 583 runs for the season were not good enough and he resigned the captaincy at the end of the season.

2007 started with high hopes that he could get back his form, he worked hard on his fitness and form over the winter. But in fairness he never looked the same player. He got his hundred at Oxford in the opening game but failed twice on the feather bed that was Taunton. His last first team game was at Derby scoring 32 not out. His failure to break back into the first team made his mind up to retire but he told me that he would wait until the end of the season to try and finish on high by skippering the Seconds to Trophy success, which of course he did at Taunton.

May I, on behalf of all Middlesex supporters, wish Ben Hutton a successful retirement and hope to see him next year playing for my local team Richmond.

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