World Cup 2015: Impressed with Indian bowling now, says Richard Hadlee

They call it the most popular chunk of farmland on Planet Earth.

Spread over 1,250 acres, the Alexander's sheep and beef farm, situated in the pristine hills of the Waikato region, is a prominent tourist attraction. It is here that Sir Peter Jackson, the enterprising director from New Zealand, filmed The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. On Monday, dna was lucky to visit the mind-blowing movie set, replete with "Hobbit holes" and what not. An hour's drive from Hamilton, the countryside spot also hosted a couple of friendly games of cricket — what else — involving Sir Richard Hadlee and Stephen Fleming, two of New Zealand's greatest sons.

Later Hadlee, the great swing and seam bowler of the 1970s and 1980s, spoke at length about the World Cup. In fact, he even displayed some chutzpah of yore by adopting 'Bodyline' tactics against a journalist who hit him for two consecutive sixes. All in good humour, of course.

Hadlee held the world record for picking up the most number of Test wickets — 431 — before Kapil Dev overtook him. The 63-year-old, who stays fit by playing golf and walking his Labrador, Jessy, every day of the week, praised the New Zealand side for notching up five straight wins in the World Cup.

"The fact that we have bowled five teams out suggests that our bowling attack is working particularly well. Our batsmen have done OK. At this stage, we're going to be top of Group 'A', but once you reach the knockouts it's a different ballgame altogether. One of the challenges our batsman will have is that we may have to chase a score of 300 to 350. We haven't been stretched and that is something we have to be wary of," Hadlee said.

Hadlee never captained New Zealand. He played under Bevan Congdon, Glenn Turner, John Parker, Mark Burgess, Geoff Howarth, Jeremy Coney, Jeff Crowe and John Wright. When asked if he would have liked to play under Brendon McCullum, the legendary bowler said, "It's fair to say that in my career of 18 years through the 1970s and the 1980s, I didn't play under a captain as aggressive as Brendon. When you're aggressive and proactive, it can be highly risky. It can backfire. At this stage (of the World Cup), it hasn't. But what he is saying to his bowlers is that 'I will back you and I will give you the field that you need to get wickets'. That would've been nice in my time, although it didn't happen. I had some good captains, but Brendon is something a little bit special at the moment."

Hadlee, whose leg-cutter was second to none, rued the fact that bowlers weren't bowling enough yorkers these days. "What the bowlers do have are a lot of change-ups. In my time, I had two slower balls. Today's fast bowlers have four varieties of slower balls. Sometimes they're bowling width and full, so the batsmen can score only in one direction. So their attacking plan is very different from when I played. But I still believe that if you get the old-fashioned toe-crusher in, on middle and leg, even if the batsman is backing away, he can only hit straight. With bigger bats and shorter boundaries, you're getting more runs. And 120-150 in the last 10 overs is far too many. It's the difference between winning and losing," he said.

Hadlee said that New Zealand have proved that their attack is the best in the world at the moment. "(Tim) Southee and (Trent) Boult have 13 wickets each. (Daniel) Vettori has 12. We've bowled sides out. There are some other good bowling attacks. Australia have (Mitchell) Starc and (Mitchell) Johnson. (Dale) Steyn is getting better for South Africa and he has some good back-up with (Morne) Morkel. I am more impressed with the Indian pace attack now than a couple of months ago. In Australia, I thought, the attack really struggled, with lines and lengths. They were too inconsistent. They've sorted that out. (Mohammed) Shami, in particular, has been impressive. The bowling has been the weaker suit, but they've sorted that out. That is going to make them very competitive in this tournament," he said.