Old Fast Bowlers: Useless?

[AndrewB]

Looking at posts on this forum (in particular a thread last year in which people nominated their all time top 10 batsmen, 7 pace bowlers etc), it's noticeable that nearly all the nominations for best pace bowlers are of bowlers who played post-1970 (with the odd vote for Larwood and Trueman, and some for Barnes who in any case is tough to categorise as a fast-medium leg-spinner). On the other hand, Bradman, Hobbs, Headley, Hutton, Hammond, Sobers all got plenty of votes as top batsmen, and the other categories also got a reasonable balance of pre- and post-1970 players.

Is this a fair assessment of earlier pace bowlers?

 

[Blocky]

It's much like 25-30 years from now, people will discount Ashwin when considering the best spin bowlers of this generation due to the wickets he got to play on. A lot of those earlier generation bowlers got a lot of assistance from sticky wickets and the ball shooting through the top of the pitch. That's why batsman of that era are remembered fondly, because they didn't have the advantage of the pitches and conditions of today, nor the big bats.

 

[Tromperie]

The stats of the pre WW1 bowlers can probably be discounted to a large extent on account of the fact that the technique of batsman was nowhere near what it was post Trumper and Hobbs; a lot of cricketers back then wouldn't really have played strokes or relied on technique as we would understand it today, and so the numbers of people like Spofforth, Lohmann, Trott and the like can't be taken seriously at face value.

 

[Red]

There was a glut of pace from the 70s onwards. Obviously the WIs quartets: first Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft; then later Marshall, Ambrose Walsh and others; Lillee and Thommo; Snow and Willis; the great pace bowling ARs, Imran, Botham, Kapil and Hadlee; the emergence of Wasim and Waqar under Imran, and a little later Shoaib; Donald and Pollock; then onto modern greats McGrath from Aus and Steyn from SA.

All this coincided with the increasing telecasting of cricket on TV so people could see how quick and hostile these guys were. It's also the point where cricket became more international. Midway through this time period South Africa were re-admitted, and India, NZ, Pakistan and the WIs were playing an ever increasing number of tests, so the opportunities were there for more players to emerge as genuine quicks. Dont forget also that each of those four latter teams only received test status at some point between 1928 and 1952.

So the majority of the early quicks could only come from Eng, Aus and SA.

I think it's easy to rank bowlers from the early/middle of the 1900s along with the best of the modern era. Larwood, McDonald, Gregory, Lindwall, Miller, Trueman, Statham and Hall all belong in the elite category. Saying they're "useless" is kind of offensive. There weren't as many because there were not as many test teams playing not as many tests, so less opportunity.

Early era (pre 1900s) bowlers is a different discussion imo, cricket was a very different game with regards to techniques, pitches and levels of professionalism.

 

[AndrewB]

There was a glut of pace from the 70s onwards. Obviously the WIs quartets: first Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft; then later Marshall, Ambrose Walsh and others; Lillee and Thommo; Snow and Willis; the great pace bowling ARs, Imran, Botham, Kapil and Hadlee; the emergence of Wasim and Waqar under Imran, and a little later Shoaib; Donald and Pollock; then onto modern greats McGrath from Aus and Steyn from SA.

All this coincided with the increasing telecasting of cricket on TV so people could see how quick and hostile these guys were. It's also the point where cricket became more international. Midway through this time period South Africa were re-admitted, and India, NZ, Pakistan and the WIs were playing an ever increasing number of tests, so the opportunities were there for more players to emerge as genuine quicks. Dont forget also that each of those four latter teams only received test status at some point between 1928 and 1952.

So the majority of the early quicks could only come from Eng, Aus and SA.

And there aren't really any notable early quicks from SA for that matter, to be honest; if you were picking the top pre-war fast bowlers who weren't English/Australian you'd probably pick Constantine, Griffith, Martindale, Cowie and Amar Singh before any SA bowlers got a look in.

I think it's easy to rank bowlers from the early/middle of the 1900s along with the best of the modern era. Larwood, McDonald, Gregory, Lindwall, Miller, Trueman, Statham and Hall all belong in the elite category.

But they rarely get named in the ATG discussions. Are they just below the 70s players, or are we underrating them?

Saying they're "useless" is kind of offensive.

Clickbait... Maybe I should have put "useless, or underrated?!"

 

[Red]

And there aren't really any notable early quicks from SA for that matter, to be honest; if you were picking the top pre-war fast bowlers who weren't English/Australian you'd probably pick Constantine, Griffith, Martindale, Cowie and Amar Singh before any SA bowlers got a look in.

Absolutely. Early SA teams relied on spin a lot. Faulkner, Vogler, Schwartz. Interesting that they'd sometimes pick 3 or 4 spinners in a test, while in later eras they've been defined by some seriously good quicks.

But they rarely get named in the ATG discussions. Are they just below the 70s players, or are we underrating them?

I think it's just a combination of the fact that they didn't play as many tests and there isn't much footage of them. I know plenty of people still talk about how good Lindwall was, and he's not out of place in an Aust ATG team that selects three quicks, and Trueman would make most people's English ATG team more often than not I'd think.

 

[AndrewB]

Absolutely. Early SA teams relied on spin a lot. Faulkner, Vogler, Schwartz. Interesting that they'd sometimes pick 3 or 4 spinners in a test, while in later eras they've been defined by some seriously good quicks.


I think it's just a combination of the fact that they didn't play as many tests and there isn't much footage of them. I know plenty of people still talk about how good Lindwall was, and he's not out of place in an Aust ATG team that selects three quicks, and Trueman would make most people's English ATG team more often than not I'd think.

I know when i used to get the Cricketer/Wisden magazines regularly (late 80s) I got the impression that Lindwall was regarded as possibly the greatest fast bowler of all time. Of course it was probably too soon then for people to reflect on even Lillee's career, never mind the WI quicks of the 80s or Imran and Hadlee. (They also quite often gave the impression that they felt the WI bowling of the time was about on a par with Bodyline).

 

[Red]

A lot of people thought the WIs tactics in the 70s/80s were just boring. I know Richie Benaud was not a fan.

 

[vcs]

It's much like 25-30 years from now, people will discount Ashwin when considering the best spin bowlers of this generation due to the wickets he got to play on. A lot of those earlier generation bowlers got a lot of assistance from sticky wickets and the ball shooting through the top of the pitch. That's why batsman of that era are remembered fondly, because they didn't have the advantage of the pitches and conditions of today, nor the big bats.

Of course Ashwin won't be discounted, what a ridiculous thing to say.

 

[Blocky]

Of course Ashwin won't be discounted, what a ridiculous thing to say.

Yes he will - one of the worst for hometown tracking.

 

[Shri]

Yes he will - one of the worst for hometown tracking.

But then we will have ridiculous amounts of video footage available, which would make people realize that it was the batsmen who were ******.

 

[vcs]

You'd have said the same about Anderson when he had 200 wickets or so. At least wait a bit before writing him off as a home-track bully.

 

[Blocky]

I don't rate Anderson as a top bowler, I think he's handy but he's no where near the league of "great" - neither is Ashwin.

 

[Slifer]

A lot of people thought the WIs tactics in the 70s/80s were just boring. I know Richie Benaud was not a fan.

That's why I don't value Benauds opinion that much. Hypocritical of him to decry the WI conveniently forgetting what Lindwall and Miller put earlier generations of West Indians through. Also, Benaud is a huge fan of Lillee who used to bowl 6 bouncers an over!!!

 

[Burgey]

Why isn't he entitled to his view that the tactics were boring? You're talking about a bloke who was a leg spinning all rounder, remember. From the late 70s and into the 80s there was talk spin bowling was going to become an anachronism because the quicks were so good.

Lindwall and Miller bowled a lot of bouncers, but there weren't four quicks constantly doing it. There wasn't much in the way of variety tbf.

There were elements of the tactics which were boring, but they were damn effective. For one, and I[m no over rate Nazi, they'd bowl damn few in a day, which was an issue at times because the scoring rate was kept so low.

Was just a different time, is all.

 

[Slifer]

Very few teams in the West Indies' time lasted that long. Also, WI were not the only team that had slow over rates; they were a product of that time.

Nothing WI did was much different than what Australia dished out to WI and ENG during tours down under in the mid 90s (people around that time called WI soft for succumbing so meekly to oz's pace)

 

[Red]

Nothing WI did was much different than what Australia dished out to WI and ENG during tours down under in the mid 90s

What are you talking about? So Australia's tactics were similar to the WIs? When they had four quicks bowling a lot of short stuff? And we had the world's GOAT leg spinner bowling a really large percentage of the overs? At least make some sense.

 

[Slifer]

I meant mid 70s oops. When Oz had the likes of Gilmore, Pascoe, Lillee and thommo

 

[the big bambino]

I agree ORs were poor back then and other sides were just as guilty. Cant even say the WI the orginators of the tactic which may go back as far as Hutton's mid 50s touring team or even the bodyline series. The WI though were guilty of some of the most cynical exploitation of over rates though. But yeah all teams did it and I'm glad the administrators tackled it.