Malcom Marshall was the best Pacer ever....Akram!

[marc71178]

Hadlee was brilliant too. I find it impossible to separate Marshall, Hadlee and Lillee of guys I've personally seen bowl. McGrath is yet to retire so I can't really make any firm conclusions about him as yet but when he retires, I won't be surprised if he has a similar or better record than all those guys.

But would that mean he's a better bowler than the other mentioned in this thread?

For me, no it wouldn't.

 

[marc71178]

Zaheer Khan doesn't come into it? How about Chaminda Vaas??

Or himself...

 

[Rik]

I remember "The Analyst" Simon Hughes walking out to the wicket, getting a nasty ball that they appealed for caught behind, then he realised that the next 5 balls would be bowled by Malcom Marshall and he walked off

 

[Rik]

I wonder what Akram has to say about his protege Nehra? surely Waseem must be full of praises for the best left armer in the game tday!

Look what happens when someone makes a silly comment and then some people take it to heart...

 

[royGilchrist]

Hadlee was medium pace for most of his career, just like Kapil dev, and its just a personal thing but its a bit of an apples and oranges scenario for me when comparing these two to the others who had most of their success with express pace.

Still Hadlee was one heck of a bowler, aussies would vouch for that, beautiful control over swing and seam, but thats why I think its not a fair comparison. Control over swing and seam with medium pace is a completely different thing than it is with express speed.

Just my opinion though.

 

[Tim]

Ok point taken Roy

 

[R_Powell_fan]

So where do Joel Garner and Andy Roberts stand in the ratings ?

 

[The Argonaut]

When you look back at it the West Indies had a heap of fantastic fast bowlers - Marshall, Ambrose, Holding , Walsh, Garner, Roberts,Bishop (in his prime). Even the next rung down with - Croft, Daniel, Patterson etc. What a choice.

IMO Marshall, Lillee, Holding and Ambrose are the top shelf fast bowlers in that they had pace and could move the ball about as well. Guys like McGrath and Hadlee are on the next peg in that they were good at what they could do - line and length and accuracy but couldn't blast batsmen out.

Statistics will probably show that they are all comparable but when rating fast bowlers the top four are the best.

 

[R_Powell_fan]

When you look back at it the West Indies had a heap of fantastic fast bowlers - Marshall, Ambrose, Holding , Walsh, Garner, Roberts,Bishop (in his prime). Even the next rung down with - Croft, Daniel, Patterson etc. What a choice.

IMO Marshall, Lillee, Holding and Ambrose are the top shelf fast bowlers in that they had pace and could move the ball about as well. Guys like McGrath and Hadlee are on the next peg in that they were good at what they could do - line and length and accuracy but couldn't blast batsmen out.

Statistics will probably show that they are all comparable but when rating fast bowlers the top four are the best.

Couldn't have said it better....really.

 

[royGilchrist]

What about Wasim, Waqar, Imran, and Donald?

 

[Top_Cat]

Guys like McGrath and Hadlee are on the next peg in that they were good at what they could do - line and length and accuracy but couldn't blast batsmen out.

I disagree completely (one of the few times with you, dude ). Glenn McGrath certainly has the ability to just knock someone over if need be (and I don't say that about Hadlee because I didn't see enough of his bowling). His ball to Brian Lara in the 1999 WC, then Tendulkar later in the tournament as well as a few of the deliveries he bowled to Lara in the 1995 away Test tour etc. I could rattle off quite a few examples where Glenn has just knocked someone over when need be.

And having seen Curtly bowl quite a bit, I'd have to say he was a similar type of bowler to McGrath in that he bowled within himself and bowled immaculate line-and-length with a little each-way movement. He didn't really bowl the unplayables as much as a Waqar or Wasim but he was a fine bowler and considering how recently he retired, he's been vastly underrated by Wisden and most people in the 'Best Of' lists.

In my opinion, disregarding his record, Glenn can compared favourably with the WI pacemen just on raw ability. But that's just me.

 

[Anil]

When you look back at it the West Indies had a heap of fantastic fast bowlers - Marshall, Ambrose, Holding , Walsh, Garner, Roberts,Bishop (in his prime). Even the next rung down with - Croft, Daniel, Patterson etc. What a choice.

IMO Marshall, Lillee, Holding and Ambrose are the top shelf fast bowlers in that they had pace and could move the ball about as well. Guys like McGrath and Hadlee are on the next peg in that they were good at what they could do - line and length and accuracy but couldn't blast batsmen out.

Statistics will probably show that they are all comparable but when rating fast bowlers the top four are the best.

Couple of things: both Ambrose and McGrath are a lot similar in their style in that they are both line and length bowlers. Another thing, Hadlee was not just a line and length bowler, he was also a swing bowler of the highest quality even in unhelpful conditions. I remember one delivery in particular, one to Kris Srikkanth in India(I think it was in Mumbai, but not sure) that pitched just outside off stump, swung away and was caught by second slip. The only people who knew that Srikkanth hadn't nicked it was Hadlee, the batsman himself and luckily for the batsman, the umpire. The 'keeper and the entire slip cordon went up in appeal thinking it was a sure catch.

 

[royGilchrist]

The 'keeper and the entire slip cordon went up in appeal thinking it was a sure catch.

Dont the Indians do that on every delivery

 

[Anil]

Dont the Indians do that on every delivery

hey, roy, if you'd bothered to read my post, you would've known that I was talking about the NZ keeper and slip cordon.
:rolleyes:

and I could add, Don't the Pakistanis also do that on every delivery? or am I being too harsh and is it every other delivery?

 

[royGilchrist]

Oops sorry, my bad

It was all in good fun Anil, dont be mad, and Mushy is not playing for Pakistan anymore, while although Maninder Singh is gone, Kumble is still there

Just some harless good natured fun

 

[Anil]

Oops sorry, my bad

It was all in good fun Anil, dont be mad, and Mushy is not playing for Pakistan anymore, while although Maninder Singh is gone, Kumble is still there

Just some harless good natured fun

I am not in the least mad, mate. When you took a dig at me, you left yourself open to a counter-dig(so to say) and I couldn't resist, that's all.

 

[Cloete]

have u guys seen Mali Richards?? son to the gr8 man himself, Viv. There was a profile on him on Inside Cricket on Fox Sports. He's apparently a gr8 batsman and is turning into an awesome bowler.

 

[R_Powell_fan]

Top_cat:- I think he ment McGrath isn't as intimidating as Ambrose and Lillee, I mean there are bowlers who some batsmen never want to face, like the "two metre antiguan", others like McGrath people don't want to face because of their immaculate line and length.

 

[hourn]

Malcolm Marshall is a champ.

He played for my club in first grade for four games during the 1991-92 season (no coincedince we won the competition that season) and he only bowled off 6 steps because he was to afraid of killing someone.

He bowled off a full run for a semi final against Randwick at who had Rodney Davison and Steve Small opening the batting (two very accomplished state cricketers) and they sh*t themselves.

Most people said it was the quickest spell of bowling they had seen in Sydney Grade Cricket since Jeff Thomson was playing for Bankstown.

 

[hourn]

have u guys seen Mali Richards?? son to the gr8 man himself, Viv. There was a profile on him on Inside Cricket on Fox Sports. He's apparently a gr8 batsman and is turning into an awesome bowler.

Mali is playing 3rd grade at Easts, which is the grade above me - he is a reasonable cricketer but isn't going to be as good as his dad, and most probalby won't play test cricket.

Saw that documentary, and unfortunately for me it was one of the only training sessions i didn't go to all year so I couldn't get my melon on the tv.

my view on Mali:

Batting - tries to belt everything out of the park. Scored about 100 runs at 15 in 3rd grade.

Bowling - very quick but very erratic. Took about 10 wickets at high 20's.

He's allright but this doco proves how much we are attracted to big names. Mali is a 19 year old playing 3rd grade. There would be around fifty 19 year old's playing 3rd grade or higher in Sydney, in fact Dave Warner is 16 and playing 1st grade at Easts and doing reasonably well. He is a much better cricketer than Mali (for that matter, most cricketers) but why would they want to do a documentary on him?? If he was Bob Simpson's son for example, the cameras would be everywhere though.