Legends Of Cricket – Dennis Lillee
Legends Of Cricket – Dennis Lillee
Full name Dennis Keith Lillee
Born July 18, 1949, Subiaco, Perth, Western Australia
Current age 59 years 216 days
Major teams Australia, Northamptonshire, Tasmania, Western Australia
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm fast
Test career
Aged 20, Lillee made his first-class debut for Western Australia in 1969-70 and impressed with his raw pace. At the end of the season, he toured New Zealand with an Australian second team and took 18 wickets at 16.44 average.[3]
[edit] Debut
The following season, he made his Test debut in the sixth Ashes Test at Adelaide, taking 5/83 from 28.3 eight-ball overs. In 1971–72 against a World XI at Perth, he destroyed a powerful batting lineup that included Garry Sobers, Clive Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai and Sunil Gavaskar by taking 8/29. Lillee followed this performance with a successful Ashes tour of England in 1972, when he "asserted himself as a great bowler".[4] In a series that ended 2–2, he was the outstanding bowler on either team, taking 31 wickets at an average of 17.67. This earned him selection as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year for 1973.[5]
[edit] Back injury
Lillee bowls to a nine-man slip cordon during a 1977 Test match in New Zealand
During a Test against Pakistan in the 1972–73 season, Lillee felt sharp pain in his back for the first time, but continued to play. On the tour of the West Indies that followed, Lillee broke down completely and was diagnosed with stress fracture in his lower vertebrae. Forced out of cricket, he spent six weeks during the winter of 1973 wearing a plaster cast that encased his entire torso.[2] After the removal of the cast, he played club cricket in Perth as a specialist batsman.
There was speculation that his bowling career was over. Lillee persevered, undergoing an intensive physiotherapy routine and remodelling his bowling action.[2] In 1974–75, he returned to Test cricket for the Ashes series and was paired with Queenslan
