Ole Mortensen

[Dazinho]

I was reading up on this guy not so long ago and it struck me he might well have been one of the best bowlers on the planet for a brief period at the end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s.

Given how weak England were at the time and that he was qualified through residency, can any of you shed some light on why the possibility of Ole playing for England was never explored?

I'd have liked to have seen him and Angus in the same side - how miserly would that have been?

The scoring would not so much have been strangled as dangled from a noose just below the ceiling.

Have always had a massive soft spot for 'mean' bowlers and would consider Curtly to be my fave bowler of all time (both miserly and deadly) so thoughts on Ole Mortensen are much appreciated.

Without doubt Denmark's greatest ever cricketer and an automatic pick for an Associates all-time XI,

Thanks.

 

[zaremba]

Good county bowler. But England was not short of bowlers of his type, which we tried in a constant and consistently unsuccessful rotation.

 

[Dazinho]

I'd argue Ole was one of the better ones - far better than most of those picked for England in the timeframe, anyway.

England were garbage at the tail end of the 80s (from 86 onwards as it happens) and I'm just stunned the idea never came up.

All I have to hand is stats, but Mortensen's control and economy jump out the page right away. Very similar to Fraser in that respect.

 

[Dazinho]

* List of England quick-bowling debutants: 83-94

Neil Foster
Tony Pigott
Jonathan Agnew
Richard Ellison*
Arnie Sidebottom
Les Taylor
Greg Thomas
Neil Radford
Gladstone Small
Phil DeFreitas
David Capel
Paul Jarvis
David Lawrence
Phil Newport
Angus Fraser*
Devon Malcolm
Alan Igglesden
Chris Lewis
Neil Williams
Steve Watkin*
Dermot Reeve
Tim Munton
Neil Mallender
Paul Taylor
Andy Caddick*
Mark Illott
Martin McCague
Martin Bicknell*
Craig White

Just for reference. I'll asterisk those I thought were equal to Mortensen, or better...

 

[zaremba]

Fair enough - I've just looked up his stats and I agree his FC average and List A economy rate are both really impressive. I don't remember him ever being mentioned at the time as a possible candidate for the England team; I remember him as a well-loved county journeyman. I do remember us having a lot of really-pretty-good-at-county-level medium pacers who were, as a rule, horribly exposed at international level. It'd be hard to say he'd have done much worse than the likes of Phil Newport, Neil Williams, Alan Igglesden or Neil Mallender.

Edit: I've just seen the grim list you've now posted. And lo and behold there are messrs Newport, Williams, Igglesden and Mallender...

 

[zaremba]

To add to your asterisks, I'd suggest Foster, Small, and Munton were all pretty high-class medium-pacers and probably a cut above Ole.

Lawrence, Malcolm and even McCague not really comparable because they were genuine quicks; and DeFreitas, Lewis, Reeve and ****e because they at least had pretensions at being all-rounders.

And Tony Pigott was the best paceman the world has seen since, er, Maurice Tate.

 

[Dazinho]

To add to your asterisks, I'd suggest Foster, Small, and Munton were all pretty high-class medium-pacers and probably a cut above Ole.

Lawrence, Malcolm and even McCague not really comparable because they were genuine quicks; and DeFreitas, Lewis, Reeve and ****e because they at least had pretensions at being all-rounders.

And Tony Pigott was the best paceman the world has seen since, er, Maurice Tate.

Gonna respectfully disagree with you about Munton, who I thought was crap. Not up to international standard at all.

Foster was good pre-injury, or so I've been told. Maybe that's the version you're talking about, in which case I'll take your word for it. All I remember is the 93 Ashes version who couldn't bowl a candle out.

Small wasn't a bad bowler at all and had the advantage of being able to bat, Ole couldn't really.

Ole was a tad quicker than medium wasn't he? Again, I'm relying on stats and a tad of folklore, so may have some of this wrong. Happy to stand corrected.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Small wasn't a bad bowler at all and had the advantage of being able to bat.

Shame Small wasn't 40 kgs heavier. Having no neck would've made him one of the greatest rugby props of all time.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Interesting about Neil Mallender. He starred in 1st class cricket in NZ for years and would've walked into the NZ team if eligible, at a (rare) time when NZ was superior to England at test cricket.

 

[fredfertang]

Ole was a bit more than medium pace, but nowhere near genuinely quick - one of a legion of Derbyshire bowlers of that pace who got scant recognition from selectors - men like George Pope, Cliff Gladwin and Les and Brian Jackson - Mike Hendrick the exception that proved the rule

 

[Dan]

I always assumed that Mortensen was a bit quicker than that, thought he was somewhere around that 82-85mph mark.

 

[fredfertang]

He was no slouch, and banging it in from a great height was a useful attribute, but six days a week cricket and the pitches in Derbyshire didn't encourage bowlers to slip themselves - irony is of course that the few who did have the extra pace the selectors salivated over, Alan Ward, Harold Rhodes and Devon Malcolm immediately spring to mind - day in day out though the slower guys were much more effective

 

[Dazinho]

Shame Small wasn't 40 kgs heavier. Having no neck would've made him one of the greatest rugby props of all time.

Ha!! Pretty sure that was what England were thinking when they picked Victor Ubogu!!

 

[the big bambino]

Get an impression from the guys who faced him that Les Jackson was actually pretty slippery.

 

[fredfertang]

He did play a couple of Tests, one in the '61 Ashes - maybe watson can find us some footage?

 

[grecian]

Should say Mallender did perfectly well for England in his two tests, so not sure why he'd be foremost on the worst bowlers ahead of Ole. Benaud said his dropping was a "disgrace", rightly so.

mortensen should have been picked for England giving the list of ones that did, yet it's a slightly silly way of looking at it, because in the end our problem back then was picking "flavour of the month" bowlers. So advocating another who was just naggingly accurate on the hideous pitches that 3 day cricket produced wouldn't have done England much good.