Obituary: Walter Hadlee

Walter Hadlee

Walter Hadlee, OBE, CBE, NZ cricket captain, administrator. Died aged 91.

Walter Hadlee, aged 15, was at a Christchurch Boys High School assembly when one of three New Zealand cricketers selected for the 1931 England tour spoke. Curly Page told them there was no reason "why some boy or boys in this assembly should not be in the next New Zealand team to tour England".

From that moment, Walter recalled, his fondness for cricket became a passion. He made the 1937 team for England and was the bespectacled captain of the 1949 team despite having missed overseas war service in World War II because of his eyesight.

Over 75 years he was a player, captain, selector and manager of New Zealand teams. He achieved equal eminence as a national and international cricket administrator. And three of his five sons - Sir Richard, Dayle and Barry - also played for New Zealand.

Walter Arnold Hadlee, born the son of a blacksmith at Lincoln, near Christchurch, was a slim, serious youngster fond of all sport, especially cricket and rugby.

He grew up cherishing the graces and good manners of the game. But in later years he could also infuriate by maintaining that his view of the state of the game was the only one in focus.

And sometimes, his passion for the game made Hadlee a complex character. His leadership of the 1949ers in Britain, when three remarkable players - Bert Sutcliffe, Mervyn Wallace and Martin Donnelly - were the Three Musketeers of batsmanship, was the high point of his on-field international career.

Yet in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he led a stubborn and successful stand against Wallace being appointed travelling coach with NZ teams.

Later on, as the status of the New Zealand game lurched slowly from amateur towards professional Hadlee espoused the merits of professional treatment for New Zealand cricketers.

But that was only after he had led the NZ Cricket Council to suspend Glenn Turner when the two had different viewpoints on professional rewards.

In 1977, he became the White Knight of international cricket, leading the losing London court case against the Kerry Packer takeover.

Hadlee was 10 years ahead of history when, in 1982 and after visiting South Africa, he espoused its re-admission to international cricket. This earned Hadlee the distinction, or infamy, of being blacklisted by SANROC, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee.

As a batsman Hadlee appeared very orthodox at the crease. But in his later years he used to dabble in sometimes strange theory.

One afternoon, the NZCC board was discussing how the game could proceed more quickly, avoiding time-wasting whether it be in field-setting, slow over-rates, or whatever.

Hadlee offered a new time-saving idea - the toss should also be for the choice of ends. Each team would bowl an innings in turn from one end, and only the batsmen would change ends between overs.

Some board members chuckled but Hadlee persisted until Ken Sandford said New Zealand should adopt the idea, give the game a new name, and become world champions overnight.

Hadlee, a chartered accountant, had some other characteristics, including a remarkable memory for facts and figures - itineraries, dates, matches, hotels, the lot.

But the players on the 1965 tour of England, for example, did not always appreciate their manager's economic inclinations as they sat in the bus waiting while Hadlee argued the accuracy of the hotel's laundry bill.

Hadlee, however, regarded this as another triumph - he received a refund from every hotel.

Hadlee mellowed as the years passed. But he still had steel in his backbone when the West Indians staged their farcical sit-in after tea on one day of the Lancaster Park test in 1980. Hadlee, as the senior NZCC board man present, advised Willie Rodriguez, the manager, that his players must take the field.

Rodriguez said the West Indians were so annoyed by the umpiring that they would not restart the test, and would go home.

Hadlee coolly told Rodriguez that this would cost the West Indies board a lot of money.

Rodriguez said he must contact Jeff Stollmeyer, a senior West Indies board man. Hadlee revealed that he and Stollmeyer were old administrative friends. Rodriguez was stymied. The test and the tour resumed.

In the amateur days when test matches were far fewer than now Hadlee played in 11 tests from 1937 to 1951 scoring 543 runs at 30.16, including one century.

In first-class cricket 1935-51, he scored 7523 runs, averaging 40.44, with 14 centuries.

He was inducted into the NZ Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.