Australian Test cricket legend Rick McCosker is in intensive care after suffering a heart attack on Wednesday.
McCosker is understood to have been rushed to hospital for emergency bypass surgery.
The 76-year-old played in 25 Tests and 14 one-day internationals for Australia between 1975 and 1982.
Originally from Inverell, he has lived in Newcastle since 1981 and worked for many years as a financial adviser, before retiring in 2010.
More recently he has served as the Port Chaplain for the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, working in particular with Newcastle's Mission to Seafarers.
As well as his illustrious playing career, which included a stint in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket in the late 1970s, McCosker also served as a national selector in the mid-1980s.
After the "Sandpapergate" ball-tampering scandal of 2018, Cricket Australia appointed him to chair a panel entrusted with leading a review of standards and expectations.
He captained NSW to victory in the first-ever Sheffield Shield final, played in 1982-83, and has been inducted into the Cricket NSW Hall of Fame.
He was due to fly out for an overseas holiday earlier this week.
