Ranking the great fast bowlers

[Monk]

Difficult task, as there are plenty of factors to consider. But your task is to come up with a comprehensive top ten, and your reasons why.


1. Malcolm Marshall- succeeded in all environments, superb action, super quick, huge stamina, extremely economical and low SR, a bit mean with a great bouncer, basically the whole package.

2. Fred Trueman- The more I learn of Trueman, the more I admire him. Fast, accurate and with prodigious swing. Big hearted performer, first man to 300 test wickets.

3. Glenn McGrath- Probably not the most exciting, but a man who completely mastered his craft of fast/med bowling. Relentless accuracy and an uncanny habit of nipping it either way off the seam to find off stump or the edge.

4. Curtly Ambrose- Very similar to McGrath, maybe a bit quicker and scarier. Marked him a bit lower than McGrath because I felt he could be a bit lazy at times.

5. Richard Hadlee- Carried a crap NZ team for a long time, and almost singlehandedly made them competitive against anyone. A master craftsman who controlled the ball as well as anyone.

6. Ray Lindwall- A pure action and beautiful flowing outswing. Bowled in an era of great batsmen and proved to be one of the greatest ever.

7. Dennis Lillee- Once he'd have been my number one, but I think that 70s Australian jingoism taints the way I saw him. Nevertheless, a marvellous combative bowler, initially super quick, then famously remodelled his action to become a superb exponent of swing and cut.

8. Michael Holding- Aesthetically, the greatest of all. Smooth economical run and serious pace generated. His bowling to Brian Close after Greig's "grovel" comment is perhaps the best cricket thing to watch on YouTube.

9. Waqar Younis- I include Waqar as I think he was a remarkable bowler with incredible control of all kinds of swing. He was also blisteringly fast. I think he was better than Wasim, and I think judgements on Wasim are sometimes clouded because he was a left armer.

10. Imran Khan- The action, the leap and the charisma, and also the control and the pace. Early on he was very quick, and like others as he got older he became craftier, with great control and economy.


Very close- Andy Roberts, Wasim Akram, Allan Donald, Joel Garner, Allan Davidson.

[Flem274*]

Good luck, I'll grab the popcorn. And you're wrong about that NZ team.

[Flem274*]

I give it two pages before this turns into ex player opinions vs stats, with much twisting of both.

[kyear2]

Marshall
Mcgrath
Lillee
Ambrose
Trueman
Holding
Lindwall
Imran
Donald
Hadlee

The order after the top two is always subject to chance especially in the top 5, but there it is. Marshall to me just head and sholders above them all with all the tools that he had. He never lost a test series and he sucessful everywhere.

[Dan]

It can't be done.

/thread

*Leaves before the stats vs player opinion war starts*

[kyear2]

Why does there have to be a war? Everyone has different opnions, and no one should try to make anyone see things their way.

[watson]

The top 3 stats wise (with a smattering of my own opinion), in no particular order because you can't really split them, are;

Marshall
Hadlee
McGrath

[Viscount Tom]

Originally Posted by kyear2

Why does there have to be a war? Everyone has different opnions, and no one should try to make anyone see things their way.

Because this is CricketWeb!

[Monk]

Originally Posted by watson

The top 3 stats wise (with a smattering of my own opinion), in no particular order because you can't really split them, are;

Marshall
Hadlee
McGrath

Just wondering why you chose those three? Marshall is fairly superior stats wise, but there are others similar or maybe better statistically than Hadlee and McGrath.

[_Ed_]

Originally Posted by Monk

a crap NZ team for a long time

Disagree with that, although (with the exception of the underrated Chatfield) it may be a more accurate description if you apply it only to the bowling attack.

It's still arguably the strongest period in our history.

[Monk]

Originally Posted by _Ed_

It's still arguably the strongest period in our history.

Largely thanks to Hadlee?

[fredfertang]

Larwood top of the pile for me, for reasons I articulated here

[Flem274*]

Originally Posted by Monk

Largely thanks to Hadlee?

Wright, Crowe, Jones, J.F. Reid, Smith's keeping and Coney's home batting wouldn't have anything to do with it at all I bet.

Chats and Cairns were hardly terrible bowlers either.

But hey, we never lost a home series and were arguably the third best team in the world. Must be terrible.

[Monk]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

Wright, Crowe, Jones, J.F. Reid, Smith's keeping and Coney's home batting wouldn't have anything to do with it at all I bet.

Chats and Cairns were hardly terrible bowlers either.

But hey, we never lost a home series and were arguably the third best team in the world. Must be terrible.

My point was, apart from Crowe, most of those players were decent, but not great by any stretch of the imagination. All good honest players, but far from greats. And as I said, Hadlee made them competitive.

From 86 tests, Hadlee took 4 wickets in an innings 25 times and 5 wickets 36 times. Clearly he was the factor making them competitive.

Even his cricinfo profile suggests that he carried them:

Few players in the history of cricket have carried the fortunes of their team to quite the same extent as Richard Hadlee. By the time he retired from international cricket in 1990, at the age of 39 and with a knighthood newly conferred upon him for his services to the game, Hadlee had cemented his place as one of the great fast bowlers of all time, and lifted New Zealand to unprecedented feats in the Test arena.

[AndyZaltzHair]