New Zealand cricket legend Sir Richard Hadlee turns 70

Tags: Richard John Hadlee, New Zealand

Published on: Jul 03, 2021

New Zealand legend Sir Richard John Hadlee turns 70 today. He is widely regarded as the greatest cricketer to have represented his country and one of the finest fast bowlers to have ever graced the game. Hadlee made his international debut in 1973 and retired in 1990 after an illustrious career.

The pace bowler represented the Kiwis in 86 Tests and 115 ODIs, claiming 431 and 158 wickets respectively. He picked up 36 five-fors and nine ten-wicket match hauls in Test cricket, averaging 22.29. Hadlee was the first Test cricketer to claim over 400 Test wickets. He held the record for most wickets in Test matches until Kapil Dev took over the him in 1994. Hadlee also has two Test hundred to his name apart from four fifties in one-dayers.

Hadlee has sensational numbers in first class and List A cricket as well, picking up 1,490 and 454 wickets from 347 and 317 games respectively. With the bat, he scored 12,052 runs in first class games and 5,241 runs in List A cricket. Hadlee hammered 14 hundreds in first class cricket and one in the List A version. Hadlee was the first cricketer to score 1000 runs and take 100 wickets in the ODIs and was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009.

Hadlee has recently praise the New Zealand team after they won the World Test Championship (WTC) Final, defeating India. He was quoted as saying, “This is a special day in the history of NZ cricket, a day to celebrate the magnificent achievement of winning the inaugural World Test Championship. It was a thrilling Test match, with twists and turns throughout...it was a dominant BLACKCAPS performance over a very good Indian team.”

“Over the years NZC have built a significant depth of players, which makes us one of the most competitive teams in world cricket. It's fair to say that this current group of players is the best in our history,” Hadlee had added

--By A Cricket Correspondent

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