Best ever medium pacer?

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by JBMAC

Best Medium Pacers
Lohman
Ken Mackay
Doug Walters
Gary Cosier
Garry Gilmour
All of these haved proved Match winners

How about Harry Boyle, the "Very Devil"?

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by sledger

Ian Harvey

I always enjoyed him. He had perhaps the greatest slower delivery in the modern game. How grossly underrated he was.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by Arrow

Stop mentioning mcgrath he was medium fast. Averaged about 130s.

He was probably faster than that. He did himself no favours in the speed stakes by employing that steepling length which, as a hallmark of his bowling, was eclipsed only by the consistency with which he held it. Although greatly unsettling (chiefly for said metronomic steadiness), it completely duped the speed gun.

I do not know how closely you study, and how much credibility you give to, that delightful piece of technology creatively dubbed "Hawkeye", but it shows (with what may be called conclusiveness only if you believe in its fabled accuracy) that a cricket ball, when trundled, loses an enormous amount of pace after hitting the deck.

This always seemed the case with Glenn McGrath. Had a he bowled a foot or so fuller, he might not have been as great or as temperate a bowler, but he would have maintained his status as a genuine speedster for far longer than he did.

Still, whatever the facts about his speed and how much of it he lost after his deliveries introduced themselves to cricket wickets, he hardly deserves mention in a thread devoted to medium-pacers.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by Days of Grace

Bedser must have been medium pace, as Evans stood up to the stumps when keeping to him.

That was only because it made Bedser, like Tate before him, feel more secure. He loved the immediate slap of the leather of the ball against the leather of the gloves. It fired him.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by bond21

only person I rate as express now is Lee.
Tait is but hes not playing

If you are going to claim fast-bowling honours for Tait, you really ought to do the same for Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Mitchell Johnson. The last-mentioned often eclipsed Tait's speed during the recent Test series with India.

[Pup Clarke]

Forgetting Mr Akthar one feels...

[neville cardus]

Annoyingly, in the case of Shoaib, I am forced for once to agree with the odious bond21. The Rawalpindi Express has been as inconsistent speed-wise of late as he has been inconsistent temperament-wise throughout his career.

[Pup Clarke]

Still classifies as "Right Arm Fast" IMO, he was still bowling deliveries in the early 150s in the series v India.

[BhupinderSingh]

Fazal Mahmood has to be one of the best if not the best ever medium pacer.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by Pup Clarke

Still classifies as "Right Arm Fast" IMO, he was still bowling deliveries in the early 150s in the series v India.

Orright, but that hardly refutes my contention that he is grossly inconsistent. He was often well down into the 130s in that same series.

[Manee]

I never saw him bowl a spell at 150kph in India. A ball or an over maximum and then down to the mid 130s.

[Goughy]

IMO, Bedser falls squarely in the medium bracket and McGrath way outside.

Anyway, with the discussion in the Wisden Cricketers thread about Barnes and what type of bowler he was, would be interesting to see if people would fit Appleyard into this 'medium' category.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by BhupinderSingh

Fazal Mahmood has to be one of the best if not the best ever medium pacer.

How so? I offer all of the following -- there are no doubt more -- as better than owd Fazal:

Boyle
Barnes
Spofforth
Tate
Bedser
Walker
Kapil Dev
Botham
Pollock
Vaas

Some of these, of course, were not exclusively medium-paced and, to make matters worse, not Pakistanis either. Nevertheless, they were comfortably better than your offering when they were cultivating the medium-paced stuff.

[nightprowler10]

Originally Posted by neville cardus

Orright, but that hardly refutes my contention that he is grossly inconsistent. He was often well down into the 130s in that same series.

Agreed, he was actually quite bad in the series by his own standards. Hasn't actually been consistently fast and devastating since the England series in 05 (yes I know I mention that series a lot, and no its not the only series I've ever watched).

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by neville cardus

I do not know how closely you study, and how much credibility you give to, that delightful piece of technology creatively dubbed "Hawkeye", but it shows (with what may be called conclusiveness only if you believe in its fabled accuracy) that a cricket ball, when trundled, loses an enormous amount of pace after hitting the deck.

Quite irrelevant, as true as that is, because the speed guns measure the pace of the ball out of the hand.