Interesting. Why exactly?
Number of reasons.
The better reasons for me are how they bowled.
Hadlee was a proactive bowler. He had more wickets with winners than unforced errors fom the batsmen (my favourite tennis jargon for cricket). He would get you even if you did not make a mistake by bowling that unplayable delivery to which the only answer you had was a stroke of luck or prayer.
McGrath , as I have said before, was the fast bowler in a crafty spinner's body. He waited the batsman out. I think McGrath verusus Gavaskar or Haneef would have been very boring to watch for most of todays fans and I daresay these two batsmen at their peaks would have come out on top more often than one has seen from modern batsmen facing McGrath.
When you watched Hadlee bowl to your own favourite batsmen, you did feel for some of the deliveries,
oh hell, how was the batsman supposed to play that one. Imran during a period in his career bowled a huge percentage of these deliveries. Hadlee did not do that much but he bowled a lot of them and bowled them over most of his career.
With McGrath bowling to Tendulkar you feel
oh why couldnt he have left it alone.
Hadlee also moved the ball more both in the air and off the wicket than McGrath and did so with the same unerring accuracy that McGrathtoo possessed.
To other reasons, more often offered in such arguments with
some validity. Hadlee bowled virtually alone as far as creating real pressure was concerned. McGrath had the great Warne and a very decent second fast bowler most of the times.
McGrath bowled for a side very dominant and almost standing alone in world cricket. Mostly to batsmen already under the pressure of a big score. Hadlee rarely had such incidental support.
Another reason, which I know will be very strongly disputed is that in my opinion, Hadlee bowled to better batsmen than McGrath had to. I agree this is debatable but its a personal opinion.
especially ol' Mick.