The Greatest Fast Bowlers

First topic message reminder :

There is no better sight in cricket than a fast bowler steaming in before destroying a batsman's stumps or knocking him over with a bouncer.
Out of these top 10 who gets your vote as the greatest fast bowler?

Yes Ambrose of course.

Imran was another who was better than Dev.

Yes Imran was a better bowler than Dev... but both were great all round cricketers.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

Mike Selig wrote:Baseball has always been (and still is) light-years ahead of cricket on biomechanics though, so I'm not sure that's such a valid comparison. Having said that my knowledge of baseball is very limited (essentially all I know from baseball is what I use of it to coach cricket) so I don't know when their technological "leap" took place, if ever.

I think a comparison with swimming (which IMHO has a similar potential for improvement through technique as well as fitness to cricket) is more apt: take the 100m freestyle (which happens to be the first I have looked up on Wiki), the world record has gone from roughly 55 seconds in the 50s to 47. that is an improvement of about 15-18%. Applying the same logic to cricket and accepting that Lee's average speed was say 95 mph, this would make fast bowler bowling in the 50s at around 78 mph on average.

Thus I do not think it beyond the realms of possibility to suggest that Lindwall was at tops an 80+ bowler.

It is interesting that in swimming the record drops actually fairly regularly (roughly 2.5 seconds per 10 years) until the mid 80s, when the drops become slower.

I agree entirely about Holding, I think he was a freak.

Mike the comparison with swimming is hardly a valid one IMO. Firstly because swimmimg is a lot more technical IMO and secondly because swimming was nowhere near as professional, or as big, a sport in the 1930s/40s/50s as cricket, which had been a professional sport since the 1800s. Indeed it could be argued that swimming still isn't as professional or as big a sport.
There is also the question of the law of diminishing returns to consider. Therefore, even if cricketers are 15-20% better in terms of fitness and technique than players of, say, the 1950s (which I don't neccessarily think is true in all cases), that doesn't immediately mean they're going to be 15-20% quicker. Once you reach a certain point, you need large advances in fitness/technique to make small advances in performance.
So, again, I'd say it's possible that, at the top end, the fastest of todays bowlers might be slightly faster than the fastest bowlers of the past, and I would accept that today's fast men may be able to maintain their pace longer than fastmen in the past were, in general, able to do. However, your assertion that bowlers such as Ray Lindwall were little quicker than Ravi Bopara seems a little over the top to me, and I'm sure that anyone who faced or saw Linwall would agree with me.

I don't think we're ever going to agree on this.

My knowledge of swimming history is patchy, but I think you overestimate the professionalism of cricket in the early years.

Agree about the law of diminishing returns, which explains in part why we're not seeing bowlers bowl 95+ more regularly now. However we are now seeing what are essentially fast medium bowlers (Anderson, Broad, Siddle, Hilfenhaus, etc.) hit 90+ in most games they play on occasions. IMO had these guys been playing even 10 years ago they would have been 85-88 tops.

"However, your assertion that bowlers such as Ray Lindwall were little quicker than Ravi Bopara seems a little over the top to me, and I'm sure that anyone who faced or saw Linwall would agree with me."
Of course they would. But if they were brought up today they would consider Bopara slow. Lindwall seemed fast to those who faced him because he was so much quicker than anything else they usually faced. As I said on a previous post, if you stick a club cricketer (say me) in front of an 80mph bowler he will find that bl00dy fast. If you stick him in front of anything significantly quicker (say, from personal experience, Ottis Gibson, and quite recently at that) he will probably barely see the ball (luckily it was full). However if you stick him in front of a bowling machine simulating those kind of speeds, providing he can play a bit (well, could anyway) after a while he'll be seeing them ok.

I wish to make it eminently clear that I am not downplaying the skill or talent of those who played years ago.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

Raymond wrote:

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

Raymond wrote:I dont think the great west Indians were quicker than the fast bowlers today my dad who watched a lot of the them in the 70's says that they were all high 80's and could get into the 90's on a good day. He said Lee and Steyn are faster than all of them. (i wasn't around in the 70's so i'm just going on what others have said) But why isn't Steyn in that list I would have him above all the names in that list. For the list i choose glenn mcgrath

Holding, Roberts, Lillee and Thompson were variously timed at between 93 and 100 MPH using high speed cameras in two studies in 1975 and 76.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283875.html

does this take into account the accuracy of the ball? and i bet it the bowlers only bowled a few balls unlike in a test match. Finn can get up to 94 in 20/20 Harmison got up to 96 flintoff got up to 95.

I never said they couldn't bowl fast i just doubt they could bowl in the 90's spell after spell they would break down.

You don't get an average, just top speed and i am sure they would be trying to bowl faster knowing that the camera was there.

Those studies were done, at least in part, using high speed cameras during matches as far as I'm aware.
There's a video giving more details on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjkBNxKZOE8&feature=related

It only mentions there top speed and i am sure they would be trying to bowl faster knowing the cameras are there it's not like today when you get it every ball so the bowlers don't care.

Mike
Your point about Anderson, Hilfenhaus etc is probably correct, but it is also pertinant to my argument.
Are you saying that the likes of Anderson, Broad, Hilfenhaus etc. are less fit than/technically inferior too Lee, Akthar, Steyn?
If not, why can't they bowl as fast?
The answer is that the ability to bowl fast is something that you're born with. Fitness/technical work may improve the speed of a fast bowler but, if you can't bowl fast, you can't bowl fast.
My argument would be, therefore, that those who were, in the past, born with the innate ability to bowl fast, while they may not be QUITE as fast as those with similar talents today (due to fitness/technical improvements) would STILL be able to bowl at least as fast as those without their natural talent.

My top 10:

Marshall
McGrath
Ambrose
Akram
Hadlee
Waqar
Donald
Garner
Steyn
Imran

Agreed that the ability to bowl fast is innate. What I am debating here is the word "fast". IMO fast is relative. The innate ability of Lee/Steyn gives them the ability to bowl (on average) 5 mph quicker than Anderson et al. In the same way I have no doubt that Lindwall was significantly faster than anyone else around that time.

I think you somewhat overvalue natural ability: it is absolutely crucial to have that natural ability, but it is only 5% of the edifice (if that; indeed a recent - fatally flawed - study claimed (wrongly as it turns out) that natural ability is meaningless).

Arguing with other sports again, do we not believe that Jesse Owens was more talented than say Mark Lewis-Francis? Or Dwain Chambers? Why couldn't he run as fast then? (let's leave drugs out for now, we could use swimming again as an example).

Perhaps you are right, but I'm not sure there's any way of finding out.

Mike Selig wrote:
Arguing with other sports again, do we not believe that Jesse Owens was more talented than say Mark Lewis-Francis? Or Dwain Chambers? Why couldn't he run as fast then?

Because he ran on cinder tracks without the aid of starting blocks perhaps?
As for swimming, leaving aside issues such as wave supressing lane markers, 'fast' pools and shark-skin swimming suits, I refer again to the idea of professionalism. I'm not saying that cricketers were anywhere as near as professional in the past as they are now, but throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries there were a large number of cricketers, especially among bowlers, whose livelihoods depended upon their performance and who played their chosen sport for at least 4 months of every year. I don't think the same can be said of swimming

Fists of Fury wrote:McGrath for me, incredible accuracy.

However, I do love the express pace of some of the above, which is certainly more exciting.

In that case Curtly Ambrose is the man for you. As accurate as McGrath, and more exciting too.

I went for Holding but am confused why Walsh is in there but no Curtly Ambrose who I always perceived to be the senior of the Ambrose / Walsh partnership ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZnx5oBBMuI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmagl3Q_4VE

jbeadlesbigrighthand wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:McGrath for me, incredible accuracy.

However, I do love the express pace of some of the above, which is certainly more exciting.

In that case Curtly Ambrose is the man for you. As accurate as McGrath, and more exciting too.

I would have Joel Garner as the greatest fast bowler as he had everything when in his prime. He had a devastating yorker, an awkward bounce just short of a good length and a very intimidating physical presence for batsmen to face with his height advantage. Perhaps if he had played for the West Indies team now, he would have had more opportunities to get more wickets as he would have been the sole figurehead of the West Indian bowling unit in the same way that Richard Hadlee was for NZ in the 1980's.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:Mike
Your point about Anderson, Hilfenhaus etc is probably correct, but it is also pertinant to my argument.
Are you saying that the likes of Anderson, Broad, Hilfenhaus etc. are less fit than/technically inferior too Lee, Akthar, Steyn?
If not, why can't they bowl as fast?
The answer is that the ability to bowl fast is something that you're born with. Fitness/technical work may improve the speed of a fast bowler but, if you can't bowl fast, you can't bowl fast.
My argument would be, therefore, that those who were, in the past, born with the innate ability to bowl fast, while they may not be QUITE as fast as those with similar talents today (due to fitness/technical improvements) would STILL be able to bowl at least as fast as those without their natural talent.

Alan Donald himself said that in an interview once. He says no matter how much you throw weights around and try to build muscle, you either have the ability or you don't.

Joel Garner is the best fast bowler I have seen in 40 years of cricket watching, closely followed by Malcolm Marshall.