John Richard Reid

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John Reid New Zealand (NZ)

Batting style	Right-hand bat
Bowling type	Right-arm off-break Right-arm fast-medium
	Tests	First-class
Matches	58	246
Runs scored	3428	16128
Batting average	33.28	41.35
100s/50s	6/22	39/-
Top score	142	296
Balls bowled	7725	-
Wickets	85	466
Bowling average	33.35	22.60
5 wickets in innings	1	15
10 wickets in match	-	1
Best bowling	6/60	7/20
Catches/stumpings	43/1	240/7
Test debut: 23 July 1949 Last Test: 8 July 1965 Source: Cricinfo

John Richard Reid (born 3 June 1928, Auckland) was a cricketer who captained New Zealand in 34 Tests. He was the country's first cricketing leader to enjoy the taste of victory, both at home against the West Indies in 1956 and the first away win, against South Africa in 1962. Reid's Test statistics are mediocre, but, in a weak side, ever in the shadow of the All Blacks, he was ever a leading force with both the bat and the ball.

"The figures mislead," confirmed John Mehaffey, whose favourite Reid was. "Nobody who saw him at the crease would dispute his own assessment that he could have increased his batting average by half again if he had played in the 1980s side with Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe."

A fierce ball-smiter, Reid once hit four sixes in ten deliveries on the opening morning of a Calcutta Test Match. He also held a then-world record of fifteen sixes in an innings of 296 for Wellington against Northern Districts. According to England captain Ted Dexter (Reid's opposite number in the 1962-63 series), Reid hit the ball as consistently powerfully as anyone he had ever seen.

Reid never featured in an England-beating New Zealand Test side, but his men secured a narrow first-innings lead against Dexter's eleven in the Third Test in Christchurch. Unable to take advantage, they collapsed at the hands of Freds Trueman and Titmus for 159 in their second innings, out of which Reid hit exactly 100 before stumbling from the field in pallid enervation. The second-highest score was 22. This remains the lowest all-out Test match total to include a century, but Pakistan's Mohsin Khan has since beaten it in an innings in which only one wicket fell.^[1]

In 1953-54, after a period of poor form at the highest level, Reid went to South Africa and collected more than 1,000 runs and over fifty wickets. He boomed afield on wickets infinitely superior to those that he received at home. Heavyset and sinewy, he had been set for a career in rugby before a schoolboy bout of rheumatic fever laid him low. He drove powerfully off both the back and the front foot, and was clinically clean in his hitting to leg. Unafraid to go aerial, he lofted the ball more frequently than his contemporaries, backing his brawn to beat the field. Reid was also a strong and aggressive bowler who, in his early days, was an authentic speedster. He later turned to off-cutters and -spin from a short run-up with a trademark side-step. Until a swollen knee slowed down his movements and checked his agility, he was New Zealand's best and most multi-talented fieldsman, as safe in the covers as he was at slip. So versatile was he that, on the 1949 tour of England, he was appointed reserve wicketkeeper.

His finest season was 1961-62, when he hit 546 runs in five Tests against South Africa at an average of 60.64. Over the course of the tour, he amassed 1,915 first-class runs at 68.39. The media were in raptures at his prolonged and unrestrained mastery of the bowlers. The two-two rubber scoreline owed much to his efficacy, which inspired Dick Whitington to dub him "the greatest batsman in cricket today", adding controversially in his tour book, John Reid's Kiwis, "There is nothing petty or ignoble about John Reid, nothing bitter, disappointed, resentful in his system. To me, Reid shines from the ruck of many others who have played big cricket since the Hitler war, in much the same manner that Sir Roy Welensky, and yes Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, because of his courage, stands out from the other so-called statesmen of modern Africa."

Reid's conversative view on apartheid was that it had naught to do with sport; nor should it affect it. Even in the late-1980s, when he lived and coached in that stricken land, he remained opposed to the sports boycott.

An innings-by-innings breakdown of Reid's Test match batting career, showing runs scored (red bars) and the average of the last ten innings (blue line).

The 1965 tour of England was an abject failure, coming as it did immediately after seven operose Test Matches in India and Pakistan. Reid led his side to a three-nil defeat but was appointed captain of the Rest of the World for two matches against an England XI at the conclusion of the season. These were the first matches of their kind and the last appearances at first-class level for John Reid, a suitably auspicious end to a career that left him with the aggregate New Zealand Test records for each of runs, wickets and catches.

A great mentor, he had much to do with the rises to prominence of Bev Congdon and Richard Collinge, who would years later feature prominently in the maiden England win on which Reid missed out. After his active career, he became a match referee, known for his hard-hitting thoughts on the modern game, whose values, he believes, have deteriorated. His son Richard played nine one-day internationals for New Zealand.