Richard Hadlee

Sir Richard John Hadlee MBE (born 3 July 1951) is a New Zealand former cricketer. Hadlee is widely regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in cricket history, and amongst the very finest fast bowlers.

Hadlee was appointed an MBE in the 1980 Queen's Birthday Honours List and later knighted in the 1990 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to cricket. He is a former chairman of the New Zealand board of selectors. In December 2002, he was chosen by Wisden as the second greatest Test bowler of all time. In March 2009, Hadlee was commemorated as one of the Twelve Local Heroes, and a bronze bust of him was unveiled outside the Christchurch Arts Centre.

On 3 April 2009, Hadlee was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. He is the most prominent member of the Hadlee cricket playing family.

Hadlee was born on 3 July 1951 at St Albans, Christchurch. His father Walter Hadlee, and two of his four brothers, Dayle and Barry, played cricket for New Zealand. His former wife Karen also played international cricket for New Zealand.

Having discovered that he had Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome six months after retiring, he had heart surgery in July 1991. Hadlee had the syndrome since birth and felt some of the effects like irregular heartbeat during his career. Hadlee continues to lead an active life and works with the Heart Foundation.

In June 2018, Hadlee was diagnosed with bowel cancer and underwent tumour removal surgery.

An all-rounder who was primarily a bowler, in an 86-Test career he took 431 wickets (at the time the world record), and was the first bowler to pass 400 wickets, with an average of 22.29, and made 3124 Test runs at 27.16, including two centuries and 15 fifties.

Hadlee is rated by many experts as the greatest exponent of bowling with the new ball. He was the master of (conventional) swing and was the original Sultan of Swing. Hadlee was seen as one of the finest fast bowlers of his time, despite the contemporaneous presence of high-quality players such as Dennis Lillee, Imran Khan, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham, Wasim Akram and Malcolm Marshall among others.