During my student days...I had been an ardent admirer of Richard Hadlee. He was such an allrounder that the opponent teams were always reffering that we are about to play with Hadlee's Newzealand.
The New Zealand team in turn was very much relying on this cricketing great. As long as Hadlee was in the team... New Zealand's test team was never taken for granted.
Sir Richard Hadlee played 86 tests and 115 ODI's for NewZealand during 1973-1990.
He was mainly a bowling allrounder who took 431 wkts and made 3124 runs in 86 tests in which he scored two 100's and 15 fifties.
He is the first cricketer to surpass 400 plus wkts. His 431 was world record until Kapil Dev broke it.
His average in bowling( among who played above 50 tests) is the best till today with 22.28 per wkt .
Hadlee's achievement is regarded higher as he played only 86 tests to get 431 wkts where as Kapil took more than 130 tests.
Hadlee is regarded as the greatest exponent with new ball...and was named as 'sulthan of swing".
Among top allrounders of his time..Ian Botham, Imran khan, Kapildev and Hadlee... he was the best bowler of all.
Hadlee was responsible for many NewZealand record victorries in cricket.
In 1976test vs India he took 11 wkts to help NZ a historical win.
In 1977-78.. he took 6/26 vs England to register first ever win on England.
In 1979.. against the then powerful West Indies team he was more powerful with the ball and the bat. He took 11 wkts to win 1st test. He then made a century to draw a match and lead the team to 1-0 series win.
In 1980.. he was honoured with member of the order of the British Empire and hence knighted as "sir"
In 1984..vs England.. he took 8 wkts and made quickfire 99 runs to humiliate England in a historic shortest duration test.
In 1984-85...vs Australia.. Hadlee single handedly performed to a historic first series win 2-1.
He took 9 for 52 and 6/43 in the 1 st test and made 54 runs.. 7 wkts in 2nd test and 11 wkts in 3rd test (33 in 3 tests)
In 1987..vs England Hadlee took 10 wkts and made 68 runs to register 1st ever win on that soil.
There had been many notable and remarkable feets of Hadlee that made him the greatest allrounder of Newzealand
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