Today Cricinfo published a documentary on Sir Richard Hadlee, in its eminently watchable online series called "Legends Of Cricket". This series is one of my favourite features on the Cricinfo web site.
Sir Richard Hadlee is a certified God of Cricket. The Pundits at Wisden nominate him as the second greatest Test bowler of all time, behind Malcolm Marshall, all things considered.
There haven’t been many who could command more control over the ball than him. A more disciplined, intelligent, resolute and lethal bowler is not known to the game. He is the only player to receive knighthood for his sterling service to Cricket while still actively playing Test cricket.
He retired from Test cricket with the record for the highest wickets. 20 years later, only 6 bowlers have surpassed him. It took Hadlee only 79 test matches to reach the 400 wicket milestone, a record bettered only by the awesome Muralidharan in the later years.
A superman in many respects, his achievements are monumental and his ranking as a bowler is doubtlessly among the highest. I could go on illustrating the greatness of this man against one parameter after the other and state what is already known to everyone - that he is one of the greatest of the greats. But that is not the point of this posting.
The reason for this posting is in clip-3 of the documentary mentioned above. The reason for this posting is the humility of this Herculean cricketer. A rarity in this sport that has shown to breed egotism as a certain side effect of success.
In clip 3 of the documentary above, Sir Hadlee mentions his mantra, his personal war song that he chanted every time he bowled - "RHYTHM, OFF STUMP, DESIRE and LILLEE". Here is a how he explains this rather amusing little inspirational chant that he often used to egg himself further.
"Rhythm" meant the body had to be relaxed for maximum effort. "Off stump", of course was the target area to bowl to with consistency. "Desire" indicated the need to overcome the obvious problem. The batsman was an obstacle and had to be removed. Finally, "Dennis Lillee". Of Lillee he says "Dennis Lillee was the role model. The Inspiration. And particularly when things got tough what would Dennis do ? He wouldn’t give up. The 100% man".
It is humbling to see a superman of Cricket admit devotion to and draw inspiration from a fierce rival, and be so non-egotistical and honestly open about it.
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Hey, excellent post. I'll have to check out the documentary when I get a chance. I grew up in NZ when Hadlee was just coming to the end of his career. He got a really hard time from Australian crowds in the 80's because he was such a threat with bat & ball (the one time NZ have won a series in Australia).
ReplyDeleteI've got a few of his books and it's interesting to see his mental approach to the game. The book 'Hadlee at the Double' discusses how at the start of the 83/84 season he felt burnt out & thought he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His team brought in a psychologist who spoke about the importance of belief & goal setting. Hadlee then created a 'budget' about how he was going to achieve the double of 100 wickets & 1000 runs in the county season, and he did it. He also had a page of key phrases like 'desire is positive, fear is negative', 'confidence breed success' etc. It's quite inspiring stuff. His autobiography 'Rhythm & Swing' is good also.
In terms of Lillee, I think that the two bowlers developed a close bond off the park. Lillee even travelled to Bombay to see Hadlee break Botham's test record in 1988.
Cheers,