Greatest Fast Bowler Ever

[archie mac]

Certainly would sir.. I sort of got carried away. To stay the proper course here is one for the rest of the party here. I would like to know if Brian Close was right in implying that Viv had a weakness in facing left arm fast bowlers over the wicket early on in his innings. Brian seemed to think that Viv kept his left elbow a bit too rigid.

I can not think of to many LHF bowlers that were around in Viv's day. At Test level anyway. I would have thought his one weakness was leg spin, but apart from Holland there was not to much of that around either.

 

[priestfan]

I can not think of to many LHF bowlers that were around in Viv's day. At Test level anyway. I would have thought his one weakness was leg spin, but apart from Holland there was not to much of that around either.

I think Closy was given to a bit of conjecture. Viv against leg spin makes one recall a spinner by the name of Nazir who baffeld Viv on at least one occasion.
Simon Wilde wrote in jest that Viv towards the end of his career wanted no part of the faster Wasim Akram delivery.
I personally think his reflexes were too sharp for anything hurled at him. Fast bowling was no problem for him and more exposure to leg spin would have further cemented his reputation as the killer he was..

 

[Xuhaib]

Glenn Mcgrath.nuff said

 

[C_C]

Certainly would sir.. I sort of got carried away. To stay the proper course here is one for the rest of the party here. I would like to know if Brian Close was right in implying that Viv had a weakness in facing left arm fast bowlers over the wicket early on in his innings. Brian seemed to think that Viv kept his left elbow a bit too rigid.

Viv didnt have a weakness facing leg spinners. Sure, he wasnt utterly dominant against them like Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara but IMO, his ability to play extremely high quality pace bowling was so good that his otherwise excellent work against leggies were made to look far less than they actually are.

He struggled against Chandrasekhar ( the best leggie Viv ever faced and not that far off warne/murali duo) in his first series in India but in the return leg in the caribbean, he scored 566 runs @ 92.66, cracking 3 tons and he handled Chandra quite good.
He also handled Abdul Qadir pretty well.

 

[archie mac]

Viv didnt have a weakness facing leg spinners. Sure, he wasnt utterly dominant against them like Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara but IMO, his ability to play extremely high quality pace bowling was so good that his otherwise excellent work against leggies were made to look far less than they actually are.

He struggled against Chandrasekhar ( the best leggie Viv ever faced and not that far off warne/murali duo) in his first series in India but in the return leg in the caribbean, he scored 566 runs @ 92.66, cracking 3 tons and he handled Chandra quite good.
He also handled Abdul Qadir pretty well.

I only watched Abdul Qadir bowl to the Windies in ODI played in Australia, and to be quite honest that seemed to have little idea how to play the little legie. They were just lucky he could only bowl 10 overs.

It was strange to see the Windies flog the Aussies, the Aussies flog the Pakistanis and they in turn cause the WI so many problems.

 

[nightprowler10]

It was strange to see the Windies flog the Aussies, the Aussies flog the Pakistanis and they in turn cause the WI so many problems.

That seemed to happen a lot in the mid-90s as well. I remember one tourney where WI would beat the crap out of the Pakistanis, Pakistanis would somehow always beat RSA, and the Proteas would always give WI a run for their money.

 

[social]

I only watched Abdul Qadir bowl to the Windies in ODI played in Australia, and to be quite honest that seemed to have little idea how to play the little legie. They were just lucky he could only bowl 10 overs.

It was strange to see the Windies flog the Aussies, the Aussies flog the Pakistanis and they in turn cause the WI so many problems.

Batsmens' relative weakness against spin in the 80's can be put down to one thing - lack of exposure to quality bowlers.

If you analyse teams from that era, there was hardly a quality spinner amongst them.

Qadir was a fine bowler but not in Warne's class.

Aus had Ray Bright, Jim Higgs, Peter Sleep and others of similar quality (or lack thereof).

Eng had Emburey, Cook and Edmonds, all were OK but nothing outstanding.

Even India tried and discarded a no. such as Hirwani, Shiva, etc, etc

WI generally had no need for a spinner.

SL, SA, NZ were either not playing or had no-one of note.

People carry on with how weak bowling stocks are at present BUT the 80s, whilst having great fast bowlers had virtually no spinning talent.

 

[C_C]

Batsmens' relative weakness against spin in the 80's can be put down to one thing - lack of exposure.

If you analyse teams from that era, there was hardly a quality spinner amongst them.

Qadir was a fine bowler but not in Warne's class.

Aus had Ray Bright, Jim Higgs, Peter Sleep and others of similar quality (or lack thereof).

Eng had Emburey and Edmonds, who were both OK but nothing outstanding.

Even India tried and discarded a no. such as Hiranhi, Shiva, etc, etc

SL, SA, NZ were either not playing or had no-one of note.

People carry on with how weak bowling stocks are at present BUT the 80s, whilst having great fast bowlers had virtually no spinning talent.

True perhaps for the late 80s to early 90s ( say 86/87 to 94/95)

But for more than the first half of 80s, there were excellent spinners around. Underwood was still around, Dileep Doshi was an excellent slow left arm orthodox bowler, Qadir was a marvellous spinner and so was Iqbal Qasim.
Overall however, the bowling strength of late 80s were still stronger than todays and IMO, 75-85 was the era most dominated by pacers ( closely followed by the 90s).
True, this era has excellent spinners, probably the strongest era for spinners but not a quantum leap ahead of the 80s.

 

[social]

True perhaps for the late 80s to early 90s ( say 86/87 to 94/95)

But for more than the first half of 80s, there were excellent spinners around. Underwood was still around, Dileep Doshi was an excellent slow left arm orthodox bowler, Qadir was a marvellous spinner and so was Iqbal Qasim.
Overall however, the bowling strength of late 80s were still stronger than todays and IMO, 75-85 was the era most dominated by pacers ( closely followed by the 90s).
True, this era has excellent spinners, probably the strongest era for spinners but not a quantum leap ahead of the 80s.

Underwood had gone by '81 and was a shadow of the bowler he was pre-WSC

Doshi was excellent but his fielding and batting (principally due to poor eyesight) offset his bowling prowess to a great extent.

Id forgotten about Qasim - very good bowler.

However, I'd rate the current period of spin as certainly a quantum leap from anything in the past.

You have the 2 greatest ever plus Kumble, Kaneria, MacGill (all at least the equal of Qadir and arguably better), Harbi, Vettori, etc

The present period is to spin bowling what that era was to pacers.

 

[archie mac]

Lets not forget Roger Harper of the WI, Clive Lloyd was a great captain, but his use of Harper was a disgrace, about as good as Lawry's use of Ashley Mallett.

 

[Beleg]

That seemed to happen a lot in the mid-90s as well. I remember one tourney where WI would beat the crap out of the Pakistanis, Pakistanis would somehow always beat RSA, and the Proteas would always give WI a run for their money.

Heh. That happened in the 1992/1993 trophy played in SA where Pakistan were infamously dismissed for 42 by the Windies in one game. Pretty funny.

 

[Beleg]

Is there a chance for Zahid to make a come back? I have been somewhat out of touch since I lost interest. Overshadowed by the Ws a lot of bowlers faded before they could come of age.

Barring miracles, I am afraid he is out of the reckoning for good. Advanced age + body wrecked by continuous bouts of injuries + squandering the chances provided by the selectors a couple of years ago (you could still noitce that he wasn't the bowler he had been in 1996/97. Mean old nature had played its hand by then) means that he has pretty much faded away from the selector's lists.

I didn't follow domestic cricket during the last season (2004-2005) but I don't recall seeing his name on the Most Wickets/Best Average list for the season before that.

Read a feature article/interview about Qasim Omer. These days he is mostly remembered for the double ton he scored in Faisalabad, I think.

Re: The rest.

Sure.