Last modified on Wed 28 Jul 2021 14.40 EDT
The cricketer Mike Hendrick, who has died aged 72 of bowel cancer, was a supremely accurate and dependable right-arm fast medium bowler who played 30 times for England in the 1970s and early 80s.
Possessed of a rhythmic, perfectly sideways-on action, at times he almost appeared to bowl too well for his own good, seaming the ball away from the righthander so deliciously and on such a consistently tricky line that it was difficult even to lay a bat on him.
As a consequence, he often found himself delivering excellent spells for England that yielded just a smattering, rather than a handful, of victims, and he holds the dubious honour of being the player to have taken the most Test wickets – 87 at an average of 25.83 – without ever having achieved a haul of five in an innings.