Lillee was bit of a fairy if he got hit himself: Greig

In an interview to the BBC, Greig, who is now settled in Australia, said: "If you treated the Aussies in the way they treated everyone else, they found it a little bit foreign. I think they thought they had some sort of exclusivity on it and they didn't like it."

"There were people like Dennis Lillee, who was a past master at letting people have it, but he was a bit of a fairy when he got hit himself," he said.

Greig shared a great rivalry with Lillee, a legendary fast bowler, when the Australian was at the height of his powers during the 1970s.

But the England all-rounder, who was born in South Africa, scored a brilliant century in the 1974 Brisbane Test against Lillee and Jeff Thomson.

"I must say I got a lot of pleasure out of that. I was an all-rounder so I could afford to dish it out, because I was going to get it anyhow. Having come from South Africa I was brought up in the same way as the Aussies," he said.

Greig, however, feels that Lillee was a true great.

"Lillee was up there with the two best fast bowlers I have ever played against and Thomson was as quick as the quickest," he said.