David Gower's 50 Greatest Cricketers of All Time by David Gower

Author:David Gower
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Hadlee regularly out-bowled not only his colleagues but the opposition too. Fighting what must have felt like so many solitary battles may have contributed to his rather moody demeanour. He seemed a man apart, always very driven but working to targets of his own devising as well as team goals.

One of his most impressive achievements was the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets for Nottinghamshire in 1984, a feat that had not been performed for many years. He had joined Notts in 1978, helped them win their first championship for more than half a century in 1981, his own contribution being 745 runs and 105 wickets, and continued to give great service until 1987 when the county won another championship as well as the NatWest Trophy. He and Clive Rice, his captain and new-ball partner, proved deadly on some tailor-made green tops at Trent Bridge – balls used to come through at some interesting heights, I remember – but they were scarcely less effective away from home. Like Marshall, Hadlee did well to be so potent in county cricket while sustaining a long international career.

Hadlee developed into a dangerous lower-order batsman, especially in one-dayers, but one got the impression that without the advent of helmets he would have remained a less potent force with the bat. He did little with the bat in his early days and Ian Botham regarded him as his rabbit on New Zealand’s 1978 tour. Within a couple of years, however, he had hoisted his batting average the right side of 20 and transformed himself into quite a capable practitioner. In fact, among his two Test centuries was one against West Indies. He rarely ventured higher than number 7, though.

Durable to the last, Hadlee was 39 years old when he played his final Tests in England in 1990, by which time he was the world’s leading Test wicket-taker (a record he took from Botham and which was taken from him by Kapil Dev) and already a knight of the realm.

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