Sir Richard Hadlee believes James Anderson is getting better with age; picks current best batsman across all formats

James Anderson is England’s all-time leading wicket-taker in Tests

Former New Zealand all-rounder Sir Richard Hadlee finds a lot of similarities between himself and English fast bowler James Anderson as both of them have been more useful during the second phase of their respective careers. He also heaped praise on current New Zealand captain Kane Wiliamson and spoke about the best batsman in the world at the moment.

Hadlee is regarded as one of the finest fast bowlers and all-rounders in cricket history. In an 86-test career,he took 431 wickets and made 3124 runs including two centuries and 15 fifties. In 1989/90 season He became the first bowler in history to take 400 test wickets when he dismissed Sanjay Manjarekar in the 2nd innings of the first Test on his home ground in Christchurch.

During a promotional event, he said: “Anderson does swings it both ways and has good control, and he has over 400 Test wickets now and his average is coming down. It is well under 30 (28.17) now and it was above that for a long time. He is probably more effective now than his first part of his career, which is like myself," 

James made his international debut at the age of just 20, on England's 2002/03 tour of Australia. He currently has 269 wickets in 194 ODI matches and 18 wickets in 19 T20 Internationals and 462 wickets in 119 Test matches.

He also spoke about Indian batting star Virat Kohli, who he believes, along with England’s rising bating star Joe Root, Australian skipper Steve Smith and Williamson will dominate batting.

"Those four players (Virat Kohli, Joe Root, Steven Smith and Williamson) are the outstanding batsman and a joy to watch. To me AB de Villiers is the number one batsman in the world today in all formats all the game," he said.

The New Zealand all-rounder also heaped praise on kiwi batsman Kane Williamson and predicted that he will become the "best ever batsman" to have emerged from New Zealand.

"It was always about team first and not individual performances, Kane Williamson will do exactly the same but in a different style. He will play attacking cricket in his own way and give his players, to back themselves and be themselves.” the legendary all-rounder said.

“Captaincy or not, he (Williamson) is going to do some wonderful things in the game and players will enjoy playing under him and what we can see at early stages, he is in control. He will be challenged like anyone else. When things don’t go well, that will be the test to make further judgement. At the time, he has started well,”