Dennis Keith Lillee, the former bowling magician of Australian cricket team was born on 18 July, 1949 in Subiaco, Western Australia and was known for his fiery temperament, ‘never-say-die’ attitude and popularity with the fans. Lillee was an extremely quick bowler and by the time of his retirement from international cricket in 1984 he had become the then world record holder for most Test wickets showing 355 batsmen the way back to pavilion.

Lillee made his debut in the first-class cricket at the age of 20 in 1970 and impressed with his raw pace. His Test debut happened in the sixth Ashes Test at Adelaide. Lillee was selected as Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year for 1973.

In the England tour in 1975 at the inaugural World Cup he captured eight wickets in five matches, including 5/34 against Pakistan at Leeds. He along with Jeff Thomson maintained a powerful and fiery bowling pair that caused panic in the opposite side. Lillee took 37 wickets in six Tests against New Zealand in 1980-81 and was the leading bowler in the World Series Cup for the second successive season.

Bowling as a first-change, Lillee had an uneventful tour of New Zealand in March and April 1982 before suffering a serious knee injury in the first Ashes Test at the WACA Ground in November of the same year. This forced him to miss the rest of the series and Australia’s 2–1 victory, which reclaimed the Ashes. Returning to the team for the latter stages of the World Series Cup, Lillee was no longer an automatic choice to take the new ball. Nevertheless, his 11 wickets in six ODIs helped Australia win the tournament with a victory over New Zealand in the final.

Throughout his Australian career Lillee was also famous for his partnership with wicketkeeper Rod Marsh. The scorecard entry ‘c Marsh b Lillee’ appeared 95 times in Tests, a partnership record between wicketkeeper and bowler still unbroken.

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The famous English cricketer Graeme Ashley Hick was born on 23 May 1966in Harare, Zimbabwe. He has worn England cap in 65 Tests and 120 Internationals. He was a common face in the county cricket for Worcestershire for his entire English domestic career, a period that went well over twenty years. In 2008, he also held a new record by surpassing Graham Gooch to play most number of matches in all forms of the game combined. He has scored 40,000 first-class runs, but is commonly held to have underachieved in international cricket.

Graeme Hick is a bowler specialised in off-spin and has claimed more than 200 first-class wickets. Hick was granted a benefit season by Worcestershire in

1999, which raised over £345,000. He was also awarded a testimonial in 2006. He bid farewell to county cricket at the end of the 2008 season. Born in a tobacco-farming family in Zimbabwe, he was first more interested in hockey than cricket. He desired to play hockey. Aged just 16, Hick played three minor one-day games for Zimbabwe Colts and Zimbabwe Country Districts against Young Australia in 1982-83. Hick became part of the Zimbabwe cricket team in the 1983 World Cup, the youngest player ever to achieve such a status, but was not selected to play in the tournament. He reached England in 1984, and joined Worcestershire’s Second XI. The impressive performance took him into the England national team. Hick made his first appearances as an England batsman in 1991. He then became a part of the England Test team also.

His inability to replicate in Test cricket on a consistent basis still is a subject of much debate. His mental approach to the game is another issue that is always poked up by the critics. May critics feel that Graeme Hick was the victim of poor man-management. The ODI statistics of this player is considerably better than his equivalent Test figures, and his eventual career average of 37.33 is higher than Gooch, Thorpe and Gower. Despite his difficulties, the cricketing contemporaries have generally showered compliments on him. They treat him as one of the best batsman ever England has produced.

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