I always feel a fast bowler should have a SR under 60 and a spinner under 72. in that case, if the fast bowler's ER is around 3 he will take a wicket for every 30 runs conceded and if the spinner maintains an ER of 2.75 then he will take a wicket for every 33 runs given. so good fast bowlers would come under 30 and take a wicket every 10 overs. and good spinners would take a wicket every 12 overs conceding under 33 runs.
the great pacers average under 25 and the great spinners under 28. this is achieved through a combination of superior SR and ER. usually it boils down to the pacers taking about nine overs, SR of 54, for their wickets and the spinners around 66 deliveries, 11 overs, for their strikes.
but when you look at the SR of waqar and shoaib specifically they take only between 7 - 8 overs for their wickets but concede in excess of 3 runs per over resulting in a bowling average on the wrong side of 25 (minus the minnows). only freaks like marshall, donald, hadlee, garner, holding, mcgrath and trueman took less than 8 and a half overs for their wickets while maintaining a tight ER. guess we have to fix that SR of about 54 deliveries for pacers as definition of greatness in combination with an ER of under 3 runs an over.
Code:
MD Marshall (WI) 1978-1991 81 151 17584 7876 376 7/22 11/89 20.94 2.68 46.7 22 4
J Garner (WI) 1977-1987 58 111 13169 5433 259 6/56 9/108 20.97 2.47 50.8 7 0
FS Trueman (Eng) 1952-1965 67 127 15178 6625 307 8/31 12/119 21.57 2.61 49.4 17 3
GD McGrath (Aus) 1993-2007 120 235 28485 11930 549 8/24 10/27 21.73 2.51 51.8 29 3
Sir RJ Hadlee (NZ) 1973-1990 86 150 21918 9611 431 9/52 15/123 22.29 2.63 50.8 36 9
AA Donald (SA) 1992-2002 69 123 14906 7113 316 7/84 12/139 22.50 2.86 47.1 19 2
Imran Khan (Pak) 1971-1992 88 142 19458 8258 362 8/58 14/116 22.81 2.54 53.7 23 6
CEH Croft (WI) 1977-1982 27 52 6165 2913 125 8/29 9/95 23.30 2.83 49.3 3 0
MA Holding (WI) 1975-1987 60 113 12680 5898 249 8/92 14/149 23.68 2.79 50.9 13 2
DK Lillee (Aus) 1971-1984 70 132 18467 8493 355 7/83 11/123 23.92 2.75 52.0 23 7
IR Bishop (WI) 1989-1998 43 76 8407 3909 161 6/40 8/57 24.27 2.78 52.2 6 0
RGD Willis (Eng) 1971-1984 90 165 17357 8190 325 8/43 9/92 25.20 2.83 53.4 16 0
for spinners we should probably go by what warne, murali, laker and chandra acheived which is a SR of 66 deliveries.
Code:
JC Laker (Eng) 1948-1959 46 86 12027 4101 193 10/53 19/90 21.24 2.04 62.3 9 3
M Muralitharan (SL) 1992-2009 101 170 34263 14267 589 9/65 16/220 24.22 2.49 58.1 49 16
SK Warne (Aus) 1992-2007 141 265 39676 17487 685 8/71 12/128 25.52 2.64 57.9 36 10
BS Chandrasekhar (India) 1964-1979 58 97 15963 7199 242 8/79 12/104 29.74 2.70 65.9 16 2
Harbhajan Singh (India) 1998-2009 67 122 18971 9012 288 8/84 15/217 31.29 2.85 65.8 22 5