Ex-Oz Test great Walters' believes Hughes will be a great Ashes success

Sydney, Mar.10 (ANI): Former Australian Test great Doug Walters says that he has seen enough of batting prodigy Phillip Hughes to suggest that he will be a great success in England later this year.

"The Ashes will be the one he'll be judged on. I don't think he'll get any worse [wickets]. I don't see why he'd have any trouble in England and England won't be able to find a bowling attack much better than that [in South Africa]," said Walters, who famously failed to match his successes in Australia away in England.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, such has been Hughes's rise that some of the great names of Australian cricket - Bradman, Waugh, Ponting and Walters himself - keep echoing around him as the cricketing world struggles for a point of reference to define his performances.

Already this season Hughes got one up on Bradman, reaching the 1000-run-mark for NSW at a younger age than the great Don. Walters got there earlier than Hughes, just 20.

Walters also managed a ton on his Test debut, a feat that eluded Hughes in Johannesburg, where he was mocked for a fourth-ball duck in his first innings before rebounding with a solid 75 in the second dig.

On Friday, Hughes broke through with his first Test ton, lodging himself at No.4 on the list of the youngest Australian centurions - again with Walters just above him. But his century in the second innings at Durban put him clear of the pack. It took Walters three years after his debut to rack up a pair of hundreds. It took Bradman 20.

"He's been sensational and I'm very happy for him," Walters said.

"It gets harder as you get older. It's easier when you start - especially when you start off in that vein. It doesn't get any easier. I guess when you're young you don't have the nerves that you get a little bit later and you've really got nothing to lose. He's made the best of it and hopefully there are many, many more to come," he added.

In the process of scoring his twin hundreds, Hughes broke West Indian George Headley's 79-year record as the youngest to reach the remarkable milestone. (ANI)