Swamp Witch Hattie
U19 12th Man
Excellent acknowledgement:
Eight POTS awards (fourth-equal), knighted while still playing (although not officially conferred):
Excellent peer review:
Possibly not so much by lesser cricketers but by the greatest of the great? - yes:
Bradman (greatest batsman ever, greatest cricketer ever):
"No bowler I've seen had better control of seam and swing.”
(I actually heard him say it on a radio broadcast many years ago and it's confirmed here and here)
Marshall (possibly the greatest bowler ever):
from https://books.google.co.nz/books?id...selected_pages&hl=en&pli=1#v=onepage&q&f=true:
"In terms of bowling, Richard Hadlee was undoubtedly the best bowler in my era.":
Sobers (greatest all-rounder ever, second greatest cricketer ever):
"He was a great bowler and I rated him right up there among the very best.":
Great openers who faced Hadlee:
Boycott:
Greenidge and Haynes:
from https://www.thecricketer.com/topics/features/gordon_greenidge_desmond_haynes_interview.html:
Gavaskar:
from https://www.hindustantimes.com/cric...test-career/story-b4K438NdbyzxM4VJN0nsXK.html:
If Hadlee had played for Australia or England when he was active instead of for NZ, there's a good chance he would have ended up with around 550 Test wickets at about 21 runs apiece and fewer people would be questioning his greatness. In other words, he wouldn't have just beaten the world record for Test wickets, he would have absolutely smashed it and been not just the first man to 400 Test wickets but the first man to 500 Test wickets as well. The fact that Hadlee was able to get the world record for Test wickets while playing for a country like NZ that played stuff-all Test cricket is astonishing. He averaged less than five Tests a year!
Just to expand upon this further, Hadlee's Test career went from 2 February 1973 to 5 July 1990 (the starting dates of his first and last Tests). Between these dates, Australia and England played 166 Tests and 183 Tests respectively compared to 100 Tests for NZ. Assuming Hadlee's availability for Australia and England remains at 86% like for NZ then Hadlee would end up playing something like:
for Australia: 86% of 166 = 142.76 Tests
for England: 86% of 183 = 157.38 Tests
(this is all very speculative stuff obviously; also, I'm not a cricket historian like some here but maybe WSC could have screwed this up for Hadlee)
We now need to decide upon a WPM for Hadlee. If he "pulls a Lillee" so that the ball is difficult to pry from his fingers (Lillee loved to bowl) then it's conceivable that he could maintain a WPM of 5 but I will instead assume that Hadlee, with greater support, would have a reduced workload and a reduced WPM of, say, 4.5 which seems reasonable given that Marshall's was 4.64 (376/81) and McGrath's 4.54 (563/124). We therefore end up with the following wicket tallies for Hadlee:
playing for Australia: 142.76 x 4.5 = 642
(they would no longer be calling him a w*nker, you can take that to the banker!)
playing for England: 157.38 x 4.5 = 708
With the England figure, Hadlee would be the first man to 400, 500, 600 and 700 Test wickets! Fantasies aside, I don't think my estimate of 550 Test wickets is all that far-fetched.
OK, what about Hadlee's new average? Well, if I'm reducing his workload so that his WPM is comparable to Marshall's (a contemporary) then instead of bowling a maximum of 344 balls in an innings (Lillee went up to 383!), I'll limit his max to Marshall's which was 222. If I filter Hadlee's bowling stats accordingly, this is what I get:
You can see that Hadlee's average has dropped to 21.16 and his SR to 47.6.
Note that Hadlee did actually bowl 222 balls in an innings otherwise the argument would lose some validity owing to the discrete nature of the number of balls bowled:
Note also that even though I have Hadlee bowling the same max balls in an innings as Marshall, his workload is still greater than Marshall's because Hadlee's bowling load is skewed to the right relative to Marshall's (a smaller relative frequency of shorter bowling spells and a larger relative frequency of longer bowling spells):
Hadlee's BPI with max = 222:
16,712/129 = 129.6
Marshall's BPI:
(2930 x 6 + 4)/151 = 116.5
So Hadlee's BPI is still greater by 11.2% which means that even though Marshall's SR of 46.7 is lower than Hadlee's (max = 222) of 47.6 by 1.9%, Hadlee would still end up with a larger WPM, i.e. > 4.64, contrary to my desired aim of 4.5. Regardless, you get the general idea: if Hadlee's workload is significantly reduced, his average will go down by quite a bit.
Yes, I know that some of the outstanding stats above have come about because Hadlee was in a weaker team but so what. He had to work his guts out to achieve those results and he deserves full credit for them. Without Hadlee, instead of NZ being the second or third best team of the 1980s (probably third, behind the WI and Pakistan), they probably would have been last again (excluding SL), just like they were in the 1970s, not as badly last, but still last even with Martin Crowe, etc. still present (as I post about here). All because of the presence of a single man, Hadlee. I'm not saying the other NZ players were not important. They were more than that, they were vital but if Hadlee had not been there, I think NZ would still have been last of the top teams (sixth) instead of third and vying for second. If there are those who do not rate Hadlee highly or highly enough, it probably says more about them (e.g. lack of knowledge, etc.) than it does about Hadlee. Hadlee's record speaks for itself. Or it should.
P.S.: if you pick up any calculational mistakes (outside of rounding errors) or other mistakes, please let me know! Thanks!
Eight POTS awards (fourth-equal), knighted while still playing (although not officially conferred):
Excellent peer review:
Possibly not so much by lesser cricketers but by the greatest of the great? - yes:
Bradman (greatest batsman ever, greatest cricketer ever):
"No bowler I've seen had better control of seam and swing.”
(I actually heard him say it on a radio broadcast many years ago and it's confirmed here and here)
Marshall (possibly the greatest bowler ever):
from https://books.google.co.nz/books?id...selected_pages&hl=en&pli=1#v=onepage&q&f=true:
"In terms of bowling, Richard Hadlee was undoubtedly the best bowler in my era.":
Sobers (greatest all-rounder ever, second greatest cricketer ever):
"He was a great bowler and I rated him right up there among the very best.":
Great openers who faced Hadlee:
Boycott:
Greenidge and Haynes:
from https://www.thecricketer.com/topics/features/gordon_greenidge_desmond_haynes_interview.html:
Gavaskar:
from https://www.hindustantimes.com/cric...test-career/story-b4K438NdbyzxM4VJN0nsXK.html:
If Hadlee had played for Australia or England when he was active instead of for NZ, there's a good chance he would have ended up with around 550 Test wickets at about 21 runs apiece and fewer people would be questioning his greatness. In other words, he wouldn't have just beaten the world record for Test wickets, he would have absolutely smashed it and been not just the first man to 400 Test wickets but the first man to 500 Test wickets as well. The fact that Hadlee was able to get the world record for Test wickets while playing for a country like NZ that played stuff-all Test cricket is astonishing. He averaged less than five Tests a year!
Just to expand upon this further, Hadlee's Test career went from 2 February 1973 to 5 July 1990 (the starting dates of his first and last Tests). Between these dates, Australia and England played 166 Tests and 183 Tests respectively compared to 100 Tests for NZ. Assuming Hadlee's availability for Australia and England remains at 86% like for NZ then Hadlee would end up playing something like:
for Australia: 86% of 166 = 142.76 Tests
for England: 86% of 183 = 157.38 Tests
(this is all very speculative stuff obviously; also, I'm not a cricket historian like some here but maybe WSC could have screwed this up for Hadlee)
We now need to decide upon a WPM for Hadlee. If he "pulls a Lillee" so that the ball is difficult to pry from his fingers (Lillee loved to bowl) then it's conceivable that he could maintain a WPM of 5 but I will instead assume that Hadlee, with greater support, would have a reduced workload and a reduced WPM of, say, 4.5 which seems reasonable given that Marshall's was 4.64 (376/81) and McGrath's 4.54 (563/124). We therefore end up with the following wicket tallies for Hadlee:
playing for Australia: 142.76 x 4.5 = 642
(they would no longer be calling him a w*nker, you can take that to the banker!)
playing for England: 157.38 x 4.5 = 708
With the England figure, Hadlee would be the first man to 400, 500, 600 and 700 Test wickets! Fantasies aside, I don't think my estimate of 550 Test wickets is all that far-fetched.
OK, what about Hadlee's new average? Well, if I'm reducing his workload so that his WPM is comparable to Marshall's (a contemporary) then instead of bowling a maximum of 344 balls in an innings (Lillee went up to 383!), I'll limit his max to Marshall's which was 222. If I filter Hadlee's bowling stats accordingly, this is what I get:
You can see that Hadlee's average has dropped to 21.16 and his SR to 47.6.
Note that Hadlee did actually bowl 222 balls in an innings otherwise the argument would lose some validity owing to the discrete nature of the number of balls bowled:
Note also that even though I have Hadlee bowling the same max balls in an innings as Marshall, his workload is still greater than Marshall's because Hadlee's bowling load is skewed to the right relative to Marshall's (a smaller relative frequency of shorter bowling spells and a larger relative frequency of longer bowling spells):
Hadlee's BPI with max = 222:
16,712/129 = 129.6
Marshall's BPI:
(2930 x 6 + 4)/151 = 116.5
So Hadlee's BPI is still greater by 11.2% which means that even though Marshall's SR of 46.7 is lower than Hadlee's (max = 222) of 47.6 by 1.9%, Hadlee would still end up with a larger WPM, i.e. > 4.64, contrary to my desired aim of 4.5. Regardless, you get the general idea: if Hadlee's workload is significantly reduced, his average will go down by quite a bit.
Yes, I know that some of the outstanding stats above have come about because Hadlee was in a weaker team but so what. He had to work his guts out to achieve those results and he deserves full credit for them. Without Hadlee, instead of NZ being the second or third best team of the 1980s (probably third, behind the WI and Pakistan), they probably would have been last again (excluding SL), just like they were in the 1970s, not as badly last, but still last even with Martin Crowe, etc. still present (as I post about here). All because of the presence of a single man, Hadlee. I'm not saying the other NZ players were not important. They were more than that, they were vital but if Hadlee had not been there, I think NZ would still have been last of the top teams (sixth) instead of third and vying for second. If there are those who do not rate Hadlee highly or highly enough, it probably says more about them (e.g. lack of knowledge, etc.) than it does about Hadlee. Hadlee's record speaks for itself. Or it should.
P.S.: if you pick up any calculational mistakes (outside of rounding errors) or other mistakes, please let me know! Thanks!