My Favourite Cricketer
'The complete fast bowler'
Sanjay Manjrekar on his favourite cricketer, Richard Hadlee
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What Hadlee lacked was consistent agression.When the batsmen got on top often he went on the defensive like in West Indies in 1985.It was this very quality of agression that made the likes of Lillee Marshall and Imran so competitive.Hadlee was also not genuinely quick like Imran or Lillee and thus could not intimidate batsmen like them.Neverthless he was one of the greatse exponents of accuracy and control and Glen Mcgrath was a modern day version of Hadlee .
Overall I rate Richard just below Lillee.Marshall,Lindwall and Akram taking into account the factors of variation and agression.On a green seaming wicket Hadlee was arguably the best of them all.For a while Hadlee was the best all-rounder in the world in 1983 .Above alll he was one of the greatset of match-winners with the ball playing a major role in New Zealand's famous wins.He has an amazing average in games won ranking almost at the top.
Statistically,Hadlee was the greatest of all fast bowlers.In his peak period from 1978-88 he captured 330 wickets in 60 tests at an average of 19.6 and a strike rate of around 43,overshadowing Marshall and Imran.Hadlee has more 10 and 5 wicket hauls by any pace bowler.No paceman bore the brunt of a weak side or bowling attack as much as Hadlee .On a green top Hadlee would overshadow even Dennis Lillee and Malcolm Marshal.Bar Glen Mcgrath,no paceman posessed as much control as Hadlee who resembled a computerised machine.Few bowlers assesed weaknesses of batsmen with as much precision or as methodically.
What went against him being rated the greatest is that he was not at his best on flat wickets lacking the variations and innovativesness of a Lillee,Marshall or Akram.This was revealed in 1987 in the unofficial bicentenary test at Lords between rest of the world and M.C.C.
To me overall marginally less complete than Mcgrath,Akram and Marshall.
Sir Richard Hadlee is one of the most underrated cricketers of all time. Many writers tend to downplay his stats and his bowling skills. For example some said he had such great stats because NZ did not have any other great wicket taking bowlers, but few bowlers in any country consistently bowled well as he did and consistently got better results. Lack of spectacle does not make him any less great.
@MADHUSUDHAN B MYSOORU .... Chaminda Vaas, Javagal Shrinath, Zaheer Khan seriously man .. these bowlers were no where near great .... Commenting there names in here along with Richard Hadlee is a disgrace to the man.
In last 25 years, Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Glen McGrath, Dale Steyn, Allan Donald, James Anderson and few others are been great fast bowlers and to favour any one of them would be doing grave injustice to others. Kapil Dev, Chaminda Vaas, Javagal Shrinath, Zaheer Khan, Shoaib Akhtar, Shane Bond, Mitchell Johnson and many others definitely need to be mentioned for sweating and performing for their teams for long time. Fast bowling is really a great talent that can only be possessed by great ones.