365 Days Cricket - Sir Richard Hadlee

365 Days Cricket - Richard Hadlee

Richard John Hadlee is the best New Zealand bowler ever, undoubtedly. He has strong claims to being considered one of the planet’s all-time greats. Richard Hadlee’s main claim to popularity was his fast bowling. He was a incredibly accurate bowler, apparently capable to direct deliveries wherever he desired. For batsmen he was a nightmare simply because he could bowl fast, but also make the ball deviate drastically once it hit the top of wicket.

No question he became the first bowler in the history of cricket to take more than 400 test wickets. In case you add Richard Hadlee’s batting skill - he scored over 3,000 runs in 86 test matches - you will see why in his pomp he was ranked by many as the world’s greatest cricketer. Richard Hadlee emerged at a time when cricket was blessed with excellent all round cricketers like Imran Khan, Ian Botham and Kapil Dev. He wasn’t as natural a talent as the others but he made up for it with effort and enormous dedication.

Actually, he reached the high watermark of his career in his last 5 years as being a cricketer. Richard Hadlee retired in 1990 and was, such as Gary Sobers and Donald Bradman, knighted by the Queen.

365 Days Cricket - Sir Gary Sobers

365 Days Cricket - Gary Sobers

Garfield St Auburn Sobers or simply Gary Sobers has become the only man to have a justifiable case to be deemed a better cricketer than Donald Bradman. He was a little bit of cricketing freak, because he could do almost everything. He could bowl fast. He could swing the ball and he could bowl both kinds of spin. Also, he was, without doubt, the best left handed batsman to have ever played cricket. In test matches he scored over 8,000 runs and took 235 wickets. However the raw statistics don't do full justice to how great a cricketer Gary Sobers was. Being a batsman he was able to laying waste the bowling.

One of his most well-known exploits was to hit six sixes in a single over delivered by Glamorgan bowler Malcolm Nash in 1968. Gary Sobers was also an extremely clever captain of the West Indies and a top class fielder. To put it briefly, he'd everything and stands out as a genius.

365 Days Cricket - Sir Donald Bradman

 365 Days Cricket - Sir Don Bradman

Almost all cricket fans would rank Donald Bradman to be the greatest cricketer ever. This is because in one discipline of cricket - batting - he's  simply better than anyone who has ever played the game.

Time and again Donald Bradman won matches and test series for Australia, literally off his own bat. His batting average is about 50 % better than any other batsman in the 130-year history of test cricket. Commonly a player who scores one century every four tests is known as a legend. Donald Bradman hit 29 centuries in 52 test matches.

Donald Bradman was not only a cricketer, he was a national icon. Some would argue that he was the most important Australian of the 20th century because around his magical exploits a new nation found a focal point and a figure from whom they could derive immense pride. Because of this and many others it’s hard to argue that Bradman was simply the greatest ever.