Dennis Keith Lillee, (born 18 July 1949) is Australian retired cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation". Lillee formed a new ball partnership with Jeff Thomson which is recognised as one of the greatest bowling pairs of all time. In the early part of his career Lillee was an extremely fast bowler, but a number of stress fractures in his back almost ended his career. Taking on a strict fitness regime, he fought his way back to full fitness, eventually returning to international cricket. By the time of his retirement from international cricket in 1984 he had become the then world record holder for most Test wickets (355), and had firmly established himself as one of the most recognisable and renowned Australian sportsmen of all time. In a fan poll conducted by the CA in 2017, he was named in the country's best Ashes XI of the previous 40 years. On 17 December 2009, Lillee was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. Cricket career Aged 20, Lillee made his first-class debut for Western Australia in 1969–70 and impressed with his raw pace. Lillee took 32 wickets in his debut season to be WA's leading wicket-taker. At the end of the season, he toured New Zealand with an Australian second team and took 18 wickets at 16.44 average. Early career The following season, Lillee made his Test debut in the Sixth Test at Adelaide in the 1970–71 Ashes series, taking 5/84 from 28.3 eight-ball overs. His first Test wicket was John Edrich, caught by Keith Stackpole for 130, but it was not until the Seventh Test at Sydney that John Hampshire became the first batsman to be "caught Marsh, bowled Lillee". The following season, during the series against the Rest of the World XI, which had been arranged in place of the cancelled series against South Africa, Lillee announced himself during the first innings of the second unofficial "Test" match at his home ground in Perth, destroying a powerful batting lineup that included Garry Sobers, Clive Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai and Sunil Gavaskar to finish with 8/29 in only 7 overs, which would remain his career-best bowling figures in an innings. Sobers would later comment that as far as particular spells went, Lillee's bowling that day was the fastest he had ever faced. Lillee then backed up with 4/63 in the second innings to end with match