John Richard Reid CNZM OBE was a New Zealand cricketer who captained New Zealand in 34 Test matches. He was New Zealand's eighth Test captain and the first to achieve victory, both at home, against the West Indies in 1956, and away, against South Africa in 1962. There had been outstanding players who preceded him, such as Stewie Dempster, Martin Donnelly and Jack Cowie, while Reid’s career ran parallel with that of Bert Sutcliffe, a wonderful left-handed batsman, still talked of in any discussion on New Zealand’s finest all-time batsmen. But Reid was different. He was a terrific player, but he also led New Zealand to its first three Test wins, in days when they were scarce.

Reid was born in Auckland in 1928 to Iris and Norman Reid. His father, Norman, was a Scottish-born rugby league player, while his mother, Iris, was a music teacher. The family moved to Wellington when Reid was young. He studied at the Hutt Valley High School, where he started out as a rugby union player but later switched to cricket, stemming from heart problems and bouts of rheumatic fever. In those pre-doosra years, he had little time for offspinners, believing they belonged among the spectators sitting in the arc from square leg to long on.

Reid started out as a strong and aggressive bowler who, in his early days, was genuinely quick. He later turned to off-cutters and spin from a short run-up with a trademark side-step. Until a swollen knee slowed down his movements and checked his agility, he was a strong and multi-talented fieldsman at slip and in the covers. On the 1949 tour of England he was the reserve wicketkeeper, keeping wicket in several matches including the final Test. The all-round excellence of John Reid was evident as captain, right-hand batsman, bowler, slip fieldsman and sometimes wicketkeeper. He was world class and still aged 21 he scored 50 in his first test innings.

Reid's Test-match scores fluctuated in his first decade, but he touched glory on tour in South Africa in the 1961/62 season, setting a record of 1915 runs, seven centuries (leaving Denis Compton, Neil Harvey, Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton and Arthur Morris in his wake). During that tour, Reid and Sutcliffe were unimpressed when captain Geoff Rabone, a no-nonsense character, called for a practice at 6.30am after a poor patch of form and results and wanting to wake his players up, so to speak. So the pair turned up to the nets in their pyjamas. Reid rattled up 546 runs at 60.7 in the five Tests. In all first-class matches he hit 1915 runs at 68.4; next best was 714 from Graham Dowling. He toppled the previous South African touring aggregates of some of the game’s greats.

Reid never featured in an England-beating New Zealand Test side, but his men secured a narrow first-innings lead against Dexter's eleven in the Third Test in Christchurch in 1963. Unable to take advantage, they collapsed at the hands of Fred Trueman and Fred Titmus for 159 in their second innings, of which Reid hit exactly 100 before stumbling from the field in pallid enervation. The second-highest score was 22. This remains the lowest all-out Test match total to include a century. His was a career in which much of his time was spent fighting losing causes; trying to pull New Zealand up to the next level. As Dick Brittenden, New Zealand’s foremost cricket writer, put it: ‘’He was never more dangerous than when his back was to the wall.”

A super allrounder, John Reid was born a generation too soon, for he retired in 1965 before one-day international matches were started. Reid would have been a one-day team on his own - a batsman with thunderous strokes, a rapacious fielder especially at gully or cover, a bowler of what became known as right-arm bursters which ranged from modest off-cutters to snarling bouncers. He marked his 50th successive Test with four sixes in his first 10 balls one day in Kolkata on his final tour in 1965. There was a final flourish, a half century against England in his last Test before he was gone As a bowler, his broad shoulders enabled him to generate great pace from a short run-up and he took 85 wickets in tests at 33.35. You can only wonder at what a powerful presence he would have had if limited-overs cricket had arrived in his time.

“No bowler was beyond his dominion. He made mincemeat of the off-spinners, luncheon sausage of the medium-pacers - a butcher without mercy.”

Post retirement, in 1969, Reid played in what is thought to be the first cricket match at the South Pole, with the striped barber's-type pole with a silver reflecting glass ball on top representing the actual Pole acting as the wicket. The match ended when Reid hit a six and the ball was unable to be found in the snow of the outfield. It has been noted that every shot he played, no matter where he hit it, travelled north

He served New Zealand Cricket as a national selector from 1975 to 1978. In 1981, he moved to South Africa to be a coach. He had earlier noted that the sporting boycott of South Africa during its apartheid era was 'ill-conceived'.

Reid served as an International Cricket Council (ICC) match referee from 1993 through 2002, serving 50 Tests and 98 One Day International matches. As a match referee he was known for his tough actions. He had suspended Pakistan fast bowler, Waqar Younis, and had fined Azhar Mahmood for ball tampering. He had also acted on complaints on fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar's bowling action.

In the 1962 Queen's Birthday Honours, Reid was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to sport, especially cricket. He was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, also for services to cricket, in the 2014 New Year Honours.