Bruce Adrian Edgar was a cricketer from Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

 and one of the best batsmen New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 has ever produced. An accountant by profession, in the 1980s, he played 39 Tests

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 and 64 One Day Internationals, altogether he played 175 first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 matches. In internationals, he formed a successful opening partnership with fellow left-hander John Wright

John Wright (cricketer)

John Geoffrey Wright is a former international cricketer representing - and captaining - New Zealand, and, following his retirement in 1993, coaching the Indian national cricket team from 2000 to 2005. He made his international debut in 1978 against England...

.

He was non-striking partner

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 on the pitch for the underarm bowling incident on 1 February 1981, during the third World Series Cup final between New Zealand and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 at the MCG

McG

Joseph McGinty Nichol , better known as McG, is an American director and producer of film and television, as well as a former record producer....

. His striking partner, Brian McKechnie

Brian McKechnie (cricketer)

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, needed a six to tie the match from the final ball. Australian bowler Trevor Chappell

Trevor Chappell

Trevor Martin Chappell is a former Australian cricketer, a member of the South Australian Chappell family which excelled at cricket...

, on orders from the team captain, older brother Greg Chappell

Greg Chappell

Gregory Stephen Chappell MBE is a former cricketer who captained Australia between 1975 and 1977 and then joined the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation, before returning to the Australian captaincy in 1979, a position he held until his retirement 1983...

, bowled the ball underarm, rolling it on the ground to prevent McKechnie from getting the six and lock the match up for Australia.

The unfortunate part of the incident was that, at the time, Edgar was 102 not-out for the innings. It is often considered "the most overlooked century

Century (cricket)

In the sport of cricket, a batsman reaches his century when he scores 100 or more runs in a single innings. The term is also included in "century partnership" which occurs when two batsmen add 100 runs to the team total when they are batting together. A century is regarded as a landmark score for...

 of all time."

The following season, some consolation for Edgar is the fact that his highest test score, 161, was against Greg Chappell's Australians at Eden Park

Eden Park

Eden Park is the biggest stadium in Auckland, New Zealand. It is used primarily for rugby union in winter and cricket in summer . The ground also occasionally hostts rugby league matches. To accommodate all three sports, the cricket pitch is removable...

, Auckland

Auckland

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

. New Zealand won this Test match, only their second against Australia, by five wickets and took a 1-0 lead in the three-test series, with Edgar named Man of the Match. The series was drawn 1-1, after Australia won the final test by eight wickets at Lancaster Park, Christchurch

Christchurch

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

. Edgar topped the Kiwi batting averages with 278 runs at 55.60 [1].

[1] Brittenden, Dick and Cameron, Don (1982). 'Test Series 82'. AH and AW Reed Ltd, Wellington and NSW. p. 101-102, 119, & 151.

In 1981, Bruce Edgar was professional for the Hyde team which won the Central Lancashire League championship.