New Zealand batting legend Bert Sutcliffe dies in Auckland

Bert Sutcliffe, one of the finest cricketers of any generation that New Zealand has produced, died in Auckland at the South Auckland Hospice at 1am today.

Sutcliffe, 77, had been ill with emphysema for several years and had been in declining health over recent months and was recently diagnosed with cancer.

New Zealand Cricket has honoured Sutcliffe's place in the game in this country by naming its purpose-built ground at its Cricket Academy, the Bert Sutcliffe Oval. It was the venue of last summer's CricInfo Women's World Cup.

NZC also awards the Bert Sutcliffe Medal annually to those it deems have made outstanding service to cricket over a lifetime. This year's winner was Sutcliffe's captain on the 1949 tour of England, Walter Hadlee.

It was that 1949 tour that highlighted Sutcliffe's place as one of the finest left-handed batsmen to have graced the game, and as one of New Zealand's greatest batsmen.

A measure of his impact on that tour was the 2627 runs he scored at an average of 59.70. At that time, only Don Bradman had scored more on a tour of England.

Sutcliffe's tour did not start well and he later said that it was the chance to have watched his great friend, and only genuine rival for the honour of New Zealand's finest left-hander, Martin Donnelly in action, coupled with the advice received from the great technician in the New Zealand game, Merv Wallace, that saw him come right during the final two-thirds of the tour.

Members of the England team were well aware of Sutcliffe's capabilities. During their tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1946/47, they had seen him score a century in each innings for Otago.

MCC captain Wally Hammond commented on Sutcliffe's first innings effort which saw him out for 197, "He did not merely stay at the wicket; he hit, and hit hard all round the wicket, and I had to gesture the fieldsmen out into the deep for him.

"I thought he was going to get a double century as his score mounted past 150, 175, 190; but the Fates launched a veritable thunderbolt from the hand of [Bill] Edrich, and the ball, with Bill sailing in behind it, was quietly played forward - only to be caught by the bowler who had hurled himself up to the batting crease to do it. He looked comically sorry as he stared at his hand; I think we all felt we should have liked Bert Sutcliffe to put up the 200 now he was so near."

Of his second innings century Hammond said, "They gave him greeting when he passed his hundred in that second innings, and so did we; and how well he deserved it for a chanceless, brilliant piece of batting, as good as any I have seen!"

The benefits of his tour of England in 1949 were soon evident back at home in the following summer when he scored the first of two triple centuries in his career, the first was 355 for Otago against Auckland.

Then three summers later he hit 385 for Otago against Canterbury, a world record score by a left-handed batsmen which stood until it was beaten by Brian Lara when scoring his 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994.

Sutcliffe dominated the domestic scene, in which there were only four teams during the earliest years of his career, in a way few players have achieved.

If there was one moment in his career more memorable than several outstanding contenders, it had to be Boxing Day at Johannesburg in 1953 when the New Zealanders were coming to terms with the tragedy of New Zealand's worst rail disaster at home when 151 people died on Christmas Eve when the overnight North Island express train ploughed into a river after a bridge had been washed out.

Original news of the disaster was worsened when one of the team's bowlers, Bob Blair, learned his fiancee had perished in the tragedy.

New Zealand were playing the second Test against South Africa and Neil Adcock woke up in a mean mood. New Zealand were put through a fast bowling mill and Sutcliffe was hit on the head and taken to hospital.

Forty years after the event when interviewed, the memory of what happened next still brought a pause from Sutcliffe, a wipe of the eye and a lump in the throat.

Sutcliffe went back out to bat swathed in bandages and with Blair not attending the ground, everyone started to leave the field when the ninth wicket fell.

Sutcliffe recalled the moment: "It was quite an unreal situation. We all started to leave the field at what we thought was the end of the innings and there was Bob coming out of the tunnel to bat. He didn't need to do it - we had saved the follow-on - but when he left the hotel to come to the ground he didn't know that. You don't expect a guy to appear like that.

"The whole atmosphere was unbelievable and you could sense the crowd asking themselves: 'How would we feel if that happened to us?' There was a stunned silence.

"Bob was all right till he looked at the other guys, who were crying. I said to him: 'For goodness' sake, what are you doing here? Throw the bat at the ball and get out.' He played at the first couple of balls and didn't know where they were. Then he hit a six and the crowd went wild. When we came back at the end of the innings they were jumping up and down cheering."

Typically, Sutcliffe down-played his own role in proceedings. He hit 80, in a superb attacking innings and shared the world record for most runs in an over, 25, which was only beaten by another New Zealander Craig McMillan three weeks ago when he scored 26.

Sutcliffe continued: "We started to get dressed to go out field, but Boney [captain Geoff Rabone] came up to us and asked what we thought we were doing. We replied we were going out to field, but he said there were a couple of other guys who would do that.

"A local bloke came along with a full bottle of whisky and asked us if we thought we could use it. We got two chairs and put them under the showers and just sat there. We got through the best part of a bottle in half an hour. It was just a reaction to what we had been through - we were the best part sober at the end," Sutcliffe said.

On the tour to India and Pakistan in 1955/56 he broke the New Zealand Test record for a highest score when reaching 230 against but took so much out of himself on the tour he was unable to complete the West Indies series and missed the chance of playing in New Zealand's first Test victory.

He never played in a winning Test side. He toured England three times in 1949, 1958 and 1965, the last occasion when coming out of retirement. He toured India and Pakistan and South Africa playing a total of 42 Tests in which he scored 2727 runs at an average of 40.10. In his first-class career he totalled 17,447 runs at 47.41.

Universally liked, his reputation was described best by two journalists who had a lengthy association with him.

The first, Alan Mitchell of the New Zealand Press Association, noted: "Sutcliffe is a fine example of how success should be taken: modest, unassuming, imperturbable, helpful, with no trace of a swollen head.

The second, R T 'Dick' Brittenden of The Press, said: "With all his successes ... Sutcliffe never showed the slightest sign of conceit, or even of consciousness that he was a cut above the rest."

Bert Sutcliffe is survived by his wife Norma, son Gary and daughters Christine and Lynn.