India's pace spearhead Mohammed Shami received the biggest compliment in his two-year international career as one of the greatest fast bowlers of
all time Sir Richard Hadlee termed the young seamer's efforts in the ICC Cricket World Cup "particularly impressive".
New Zealand's greatest cricketing icon said that the Indian bowling unit's turnaround after their disastrous Test and tri-series show has been very impressive.
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"I am more impressed with the Indian pace attack now than a couple of months ago. In Australia (referring to Test series), I thought the attack really struggled with their line and length. They were too inconsistent. They've sorted that out now. Shami, in particular, has been impressive.
"The bowling has been the weaker suit, but they've sorted that out. That is going to make them very competitive in this tournament," Hadlee said during a media interaction for a World Cup promotional event at the Hobiton Movie Set in Hamilton.
Like a true-blue Black Caps supporter, Hadlee's vote for the best bowling unit went to his countrymen Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Daniel Vettori.
"The four best attacks are New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and India. Our attack has proved they are the best in the world at the moment. Southee and Boult have taken 13 wickets each while Vettori has 12. We've bowled sides out which proves we are doing well.
"There are some other good bowling attacks. Australia, for one, with Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson is a good attack. Steyn is getting better for South Africa with a good back up in Morkel. But South Africa will struggle in absence of a quality fifth bowler during knock-out stages."
For someone who could bowl both inswing and outswing with same action, it was only natural that Hadlee would point out about the subtle changes in trend that has happened in fast bowling over the years. Hadlee wants to see the old-fashioned inswinging yorkers come back in the picture.
"We're not seeing many yorkers bowled by the strike bowlers. What they do is have a lot of change-ups. In my time, I had two slower balls. Today fast bowlers have four varieties of slower balls. Sometimes they’re bowling wide and keeping it full, so the batsmen can score only in one direction. So their attacking plan is very different from when I played," said the 63-year-old Hadlee who has 431 Tests and 158 ODI wickets.
Although New Zealand have played in World Cup semi-finals on six occasions, they have never been able to reach the final.
“We have a very good chance, probably our best ever in a World Cup. We’re very well coached by Mike Hesson and extremely well led by Brendon McCullum. And we’re one of the best fielding units in the competition. You just have to look at McCullum and the way he puts his body on the line. When players see that, they’re going to give everything for sake of victory,” said Hadlee.
But Hadlee did have a word of caution for the Black Caps as he feels that knock-outs will be a different ball game altogether and there may be a match where they would have to chase a score in excess of 300.
“But once you reach the knockouts it’s a different ballgame altogether for all eight teams. One of the challenges our batsman will have is that we may have to chase a score of 300 to 350. We haven’t been stretched to that stage so far and that is something we have to be wary of,” Hadlee said.
