Why a relative lack of great left arm pace bowlers?

[andruid]

I agree that left handed bowlers make it look difficult, but only when they bowl from around the wicket.

Mitchell Starc's action is also silky smooth. I reckon he is on the path to be an ATG

 

[Red]

Chaminda Vaas IMO is the third best left arm quick

Nah. The always forgotten man, Bill Johnston, is.

 

[harsh.ag]

Frank Foster F****

 

[Starfighter]

We can't forget Bill Voce.

 

[listento_me]

Cricket has always produced lots of ATG left handed batsmen (Sobers, Lara, Harvey, Sangakkara, Pollock, etc) and plenty of very very good ones too. It's a similar case with slow left arm bowlers, with Verity, Rhodes, Bedi, Wardle, Herath, etc among plenty of others.

But on the pace bowling front, you have Wasim, Davidson, and then.... Johnson? Zaheer? Sobers? Even if I'm missing a few names, it's clear that it's slim pickings compared to other disciplines. What makes it that hard to succeed at?

They were great?

And to answer your question, in cricket, most gravitate towards batting anyway, it is after eall ,easier. So you will naturally get a larger number of left armers in that field anyway.

 

[Starfighter]

As far as action aesthetics go, I don't think that lefties look any more awkward than righties. Sure get guys with really awkward actions like Sohail Tanvir, but I don't think I've seen any pace bowler with a action as strange a as Allan Thomson. While Wasim and Johnson aren't the most attractive Zaheer and especially Davidson had good looking actions.
I do think that left armers are much more likely to bowl side on the right armers, even though both tend to rely on the equivalent swing. While nearly all younger right arm pace bowlers that are going around Australia at the moment are chest on, Behrendorff, Paris and so on tend side on. Although nobody these days tends to be as side on as was popular back in the sixties.

 

[TheJediBrah]

They were great?

And to answer your question, in cricket, most gravitate towards batting anyway, it is after eall ,easier. So you will naturally get a larger number of left armers in that field anyway.

Well that's obviously not relevant at all. There's always going to be around the same ratio of bowlers to batters in professional cricket, regardless if more people want to be batsmen.

What could be relevant though is the simple fact that there are more batsmen than bowlers in professional cricket. In an average team you generally have 5-6 batsmen and ~3 fast bowlers.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yeah, the left arm bowlers aren't really left handed thing probably is the answer.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

I'd say (or add) that at lower or junior levels (where, in my experience, the proportion of left-handers is lower, or closer to natural proportions), left armers would be more tempted to bowl spin, because it would provide an 'easy', as it were, method to move the ball away from the right-hander and pick up wickets if your pace is lacking a bit.

 

[listento_me]

Well that's obviously not relevant at all. There's always going to be around the same ratio of bowlers to batters in professional cricket, regardless if more people want to be batsmen.

What could be relevant though is the simple fact that there are more batsmen than bowlers in professional cricket. In an average team you generally have 5-6 batsmen and ~3 fast bowlers.

Are you sure? playing school cricket there were more batsmen than bowlers and that's not unique to just my school either. It's just an easier thing to learn.

In the end, you get a larger cross section of batsmen, so naturally more will be left handed.

In all honesty, it's just theory, no one really knows and the question of left handed bowlers probably goes hand in hand with why there are so few great fast bowlers in general, especially these days. It's just an overall more difficult art.

 

[smash84]

Are you sure? playing school cricket there were more batsmen than bowlers and that's not unique to just my school either. It's just an easier thing to learn.

In the end, you get a larger cross section of batsmen, so naturally more will be left handed.

In all honesty, it's just theory, no one really knows and the question of left handed bowlers probably goes hand in hand with why there are so few great fast bowlers in general, especially these days. It's just an overall more difficult art.

Actually that is an interesting theory at the school level. In most schools and neighborhoods in Pakistan that I saw people preferably wanted to bowl fast. And by fast I mean everyone wanted to be express. The dream for every kid was that they should be so quick that by the time the batsman has played a shot the ball has already thumped into the hands of the keeper. Obviously most people were nowhere near as quick even if they tried bowling that quick so most people just settled for being batsmen because everybody could bat and the learning curve was less steep initially than for being a fast bowler. So yeah, there could be some merit to this.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Are you sure? playing school cricket there were more batsmen than bowlers and that's not unique to just my school either. It's just an easier thing to learn.

In the end, you get a larger cross section of batsmen, so naturally more will be left handed.

In all honesty, it's just theory, no one really knows and the question of left handed bowlers probably goes hand in hand with why there are so few great fast bowlers in general, especially these days. It's just an overall more difficult art.

Actually you might have a point, if more people want to be batsmen then there's a bigger chance of a natural freak or great player being produced. Good point.