At the Double. The Story of Cricket's Pacemaker

This is the story of Richard Hadlee's 'purple' period between August 1983 and August 1984. Twelve months in which he did more than anyone to catapult New Zealand cricket into the good times. He inspired his country's first ever Test success on English soil, single-handedly destroyed their batting six months later and set up New Zealand's historc series victory against 'the Poms', then he became the only cricketer in modern times to achieve the 'double' of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in an English season. The world's great-all-rounders like Sir Garfieeld Sobers, Mike Proctor, Imran Khan and Clive Rice all had a tilt at the traditional double and failed. With the reduction of the first class fixture list in 1969, no one believed it could be done again. Hadlee proved them wrong. He planned it like a military exercise. Yet in the middle of his fabulour year, New Zealand's great bowler-batsman came periously close to oblivion. He went to bed at night convinced he wouldn't make daybreak! Hadlee arose from his trauma a positive thinker. His controversial views on the major issues of the game bristle with self-assurance - whether it be the South African question, commercialism in cricket of the touchy subject of overseas players in England, Hadlee delievers his opinions with the same gusto which has dumped more than the occasional batsman on his rump! Illustrated.(We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Academic Literature.).