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My top 30 pace bowlers of alltime

BhupinderSingh

BhupinderSingh

Banned
This list is based on what I saw,read & in some cases I've purely by stats.But I've also tried to take the conditions & oppositions strengths & weaknesses into account.Apologies if I've missed any great name.

1.Imran Khan
2.Richard Hadlee
3.Macolm Marshall
4.Wasim Akram
5.Glenn McGrath
6.Curtly Ambrose
7.Sidney Barnes
8.Joel Garner
9.Allan Donald
10.George Lohmann
11.Waqar Younis
12.Fred Trueman
13.Wes Hall
14.Ray Lindwall
15.Dennis Lillee
16.Michael Holding
17.Alan Davidson
18.Colin Croft
19.Fazal Mahmood
20.Courtney Walsh
21.Frank Tyson
22.Bob Willis
23.Harold Larwood
24.Fred Spofforth
25.Shaun Pollock
26.Shoaib Akhtar
27.Ian Botham
28.Kapil Dev
29.Ian Bishop
30.Sarfaraz Nawaz.
 
stumpski

stumpski

International Captain
Not a bad list, but some of those were no more than medium-fast in truth - Barnes, Lohmann and Fazal Mahmood for example. But pleasing to see you haven't just concentrated on the last 30 years.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
BhupinderSingh said:
This list is based on what I saw,read & in some cases I've purely by stats.But I've also tried to take the conditions & oppositions strengths & weaknesses into account.Apologies if I've missed any great name.

1.Imran Khan
2.Richard Hadlee
3.Macolm Marshall
4.Wasim Akram
5.Glenn McGrath
6.Curtly Ambrose
7.Sidney Barnes
8.Joel Garner
9.Allan Donald
10.George Lohmann
11.Waqar Younis
12.Fred Trueman
13.Wes Hall
14.Ray Lindwall
15.Dennis Lillee
16.Michael Holding
17.Alan Davidson
18.Colin Croft
19.Fazal Mahmood
20.Courtney Walsh
21.Frank Tyson
22.Bob Willis
23.Harold Larwood
24.Fred Spofforth
25.Shaun Pollock
26.Shoaib Akhtar
27.Ian Botham
28.Kapil Dev
29.Ian Bishop
30.Sarfaraz Nawaz.
Click to expand...
No Bedser no Maurice Tate.!!

A list which includes Sarfaraz Nawaz and Shoaib Akhtar amongst the all time best could be a bit longer than just 30 :)
 
stumpski

stumpski

International Captain
I've already mentioned Mahmood (who was often described at the time as Pakistan's Bedser); Kapil I think slowed down with the years. he was pretty sharp when he started out.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
stumpski said:
I've already mentioned Mahmood (who was often described at the time as Pakistan's Bedser); Kapil I think slowed down with the years. he was pretty sharp when he started out.
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Tate came off the wicket like "the crack of doom" and surely as quick as kapil. Bedser was not slower than Fazal Mehmood or Davidson. The moment Davidson and Fazal are included in this list it makes it cear that it is not about REAL FAST bowlers.

By the way, Barnes bowled nothing but very quick legbreaks. He was perhaps slower than most of those in that list or discussed outside it.

No my friend this list is not about FAST bowlers.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
The bowler to whom Barnes was frequently compared is no other than the Aussie leg spin bowler Orielly.When Barnes was told that someone considered Orielly a better bowler because he also bowled the googly, Barnes did not claim that he was quicker bu that "I never needed to bowl the googly"

Its just that he bowled his quick leg breaks with an action that made the ball swerve in the air IN to the batsman and then boke away on pitching. It was the sharp and surprising movement that made him deadly not any EXPRESS pace. At his 'pace' that movement was enough.
 
Matt79

Matt79

Global Moderator
Fair effort - as with anything in cricket, especially when you move beyond say a top 5, you're going to be missing many names some people think should be there, and including others that people think shouldn't. And while the names look largely like I'd agree with them, splitting hairs between someone being 12th or 15th is always going to be pretty difficult task.

Imran at #1 is something most probably wouldn't agree with, but he was pretty damn good, so its certainly an opinion that can be (robustly) defended.
 
Richard

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
SJS said:
By the way, Barnes bowled nothing but very quick legbreaks. He was perhaps slower than most of those in that list or discussed outside it.

No my friend this list is not about FAST bowlers.
Click to expand...
Yeah, SF Barnes wasn't a seamer. Lohmann was a slow-medium bowler who probably wouldn't even bowl in the game of 1900 onwards too, TBH.

IMO, though, the likes of Bedser and Ironmonger deserve mentions above many of the above TBH.

I'm no great fan of having 20 exact positions though TBH. And Lillee > Wesley Winfield Hall really. And Waqar Younis, in the end. If both had carried on as they started it might be a different matter.
 
The Sean

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
SJS said:
Bedser was not slower than Fazal Mehmood or Davidson.
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I would have thought he was, TBH. Though I freely admit I never saw them play live so if you did fair enough. I think you might be under rating Davo's pace a little though. Agreed that Bedser and Fazal bowled at a similar medium-fastish kind of pace, but from all I've heard and read (and seen on film) I thought Davo bowled a very sharp fast-medium and from time to time according to reports could be genuinely quick, not far short of Lindwall.

I wouldn't class Davo as express by any means, but I think he was appreciably quicker than a Bedser or a Fazal.
 
Matt79

Matt79

Global Moderator
I thought he was considerably slower than a real quick like Lindwall, but probably slightly quicker than Bedser or Fazal, although that's based on written accounts - I've not seen much video of anything of them, and none whatsoever of Fazal.
 
The Sean

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Matt79 said:
I thought he was considerably slower than a real quick like Lindwall, but probably slightly quicker than Bedser or Fazal, although that's based on written accounts - I've not seen much video of anything of them, and none whatsoever of Fazal.
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I'll ask my dad when I next speak to him, he followed both men closely. Davo certainly wasn't as quick as Lindwall, nor as consistently fast, though I'd been led to believe that he could occasionally hit quite some pace.
 
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