World's Greatest Pace Bowler/Seamer (in Tests)

[nightprowler10]

shoaib akhter can do it. shoaib is the most conterversial bowler of all time. that the reason with all of his pace and greatness he seam pretty behind. if he pay attention on his cricket instead of his outside cricket activities. he would be in number one.
2007's suprise bowler would be shahid nazir he would be one of the guys who is going to join the icc ranking but he won't be number one. asif has a good chance same with malinga and bond and other new names like taylor from wi.
nitini would be the guy holding the number one spot for half or full year i think.

You mean second spot, right? Murali is light years ahead of any other bowler.

 

[Richard]

I disagree that he never bowled well in the Ashes. In fact, I'm stunned that someone who is so obsessed with bowlers moving the ball could fail to rate his spell in the second innings in Adelaide, which was very comfortably the best spell of reverse swing in the series. I also thought he bowled remarkably well on the second morning in Sydney. Overall it was not a very good series for Lee because he started so horrifically and was the poorest of Australia's bowlers throughout, but his record after that spell in the second innings of Adelaide was very good, with a low 20s average.

His record was good, and yes, he bowled better there than any other time, but to say he bowled well in the last 3 Tests is silly IMO, he didn't.

As for "being obsessed with moving the ball", you won't get far as a bowler without doing so, as I've said quite a few times.

 

[Richard]

Anyway, I'm not arguing that Lee is a better bowler than Flintoff or Hoggard, as he's not, merely that it's a bit silly to say "Hoggard is clearly better than Lee as his average is 30 over the last 3 years" when Lee's average is more or less exactly the same in that same time period, and better over the last two seasons.

Except that average isn't the be-all-and-end-all, and Hoggard has several times suffered from appalling catching in that period (yes, Lee had some ill-fortune in 2005, too, but he also had times when he was flattered by his figures).

I wasn't actually talking about the Hoggard-Lee comparison when I mentioned Hoggard's average of 30 in the last 3 years, in any case, I was talking about the fact that "overall stats don't lie" is nonsense, because Hoggard pre-2004 was markedly worse than Hoggard post-2004 has been.

 

[Richard]

shoaib akhter can do it. shoaib is the most conterversial bowler of all time. that the reason with all of his pace and greatness he seam pretty behind. if he pay attention on his cricket instead of his outside cricket activities. he would be in number one.

That's the thing. If.

Unfortunately, to date he hasn't and time's pretty short now.

 

[The Sean]

That's the thing. If.

Unfortunately, to date he hasn't and time's pretty short now.

Agree there mate. He's what, 32 now? And he's not the kind of bowler who will improve with age by gaining guile and variety as his pace goes, imo.

Shoaib's raw talent is supreme, almost unrivalled in his generation - and when he's on, he is nigh-on unplayable. Unfortunately his fitness, temperament and intestinal fortitude don't come close to matching it. And for that reason I think he will sadly go down as one of the great "what might have beens".