Greatest English fast bowler ever ?

[Richard]

I do? You didn't seem to be saying exactly what I said in that post, else there'd have been little point in writing it.

C'mon, DB, it's Xmas, let's put the many disagreements down the years on the back burner ey?

 

[BoyBrumby]

I do? You didn't seem to be saying exactly what I said in that post, else there'd have been little point in writing it.

C'mon, DB, it's Xmas, let's put the many disagreements down the years on the back burner ey?

Happy Xmas & all, but the season of goodwill doesn't stretch quite as far as automatically meaning you're right about everything.

 

[Fiery]

Happy Xmas & all, but the season of goodwill doesn't stretch quite as far as automatically meaning you're right about everything.

If it did it would be Christmas every day for our Richard

 

[Richard]

Happy Xmas & all, but the season of goodwill doesn't stretch quite as far as automatically meaning you're right about everything.

I didn't even say I was, TBH, was merely saying we need not disagree on whether or not we agree on something. Or sumate like that.

 

[neville cardus]

Ignoring his somewhat doubtful place on that list, I don't think that I could ever give my vote to anyone other than Barnes.

 

[neville cardus]

Tom Richardson

That is where I would have stuck my pennies had not Sydney Francis been an option. Bedser (again questionable) comes second, with Trueman in at third.

 

[neville cardus]

He used to walk to The Oval from his home each day and then back again at the close, a distance of 14 miles, and all with his kit in a bag.

For some reason, I feel obliged to inform you that he was also partial to showering outdoors.

 

[neville cardus]

Not even close mate. 88 wickets is hardly enough. Fantastic FC bowler though.

He was the unbreakable backbone of contemporary English elevens, the doughty solider who fought on long after his colleagues had fallen or meekly surrendered. Just look at his untiring slavery in Australia in 1894/95 or his magnificent second-innings labour in the great Lord's Test of 1896.

There was likely never a greater cricketer for out-and-out toil; certainly, it would make for a very interesting statistical study to examine the proportion of his teams' overs that he bowled as compared with those of the other genuinely quick men on that list.

Speaking of which, where is Lockwood?

 

[neville cardus]

And you don't have any problems with Stuart Barnes being in the list?

If he was, I most certainly would have a qualm or nine. For one thing, he was nowt but a medium-pacer; for another, he never played a Test Match; for one more, he could barely hold down a place in the Gloucestershire team; and, to top it all, his first-class average was only just below forty. Why anyone would put him on the list is quite beyond me.

 

[Richard]

Speaking of which, where is Lockwood?

Yeah, frankly if Larwood deserves consideration in polls like this (and he always gets it) I've always been hugely disappointed, nay dismayed, that his near-namesake virtually never does. I'm far from an expert on his deeds, knowing anything extensive only relating to The Ashes 1902 (when Lockwood was aged 34) and his much-lamented problems outside the game. I'm sure you could probably fill the masses in a little more. Admittedly he played just 5 seasons in the 20th-century, including just that sole Test series, but he has still always struck me as one fairly remarkable whose frailties deprived us of a perhaps rather special cricketer.

 

[Perm]

If he was, I most certainly would have a qualm or nine. For one thing, he was nowt but a medium-pacer; for another, he never played a Test Match; for one more, he could barely hold down a place in the Gloucestershire team; and, to top it all, his first-class average was only just below forty. Why anyone would put him on the list is quite beyond me.

Yeah, alright, haha, I made a mistake

 

[neville cardus]

The only defence that the O.P. could possibly use for this conspicuous exclusion would be that he played in the same era as (and was quite obviously second to) Tom Richardson. Indeed, Lockwood confirmed as much late in life to Herbert Strudwick when, sitting in a wheelchair next to the Trent Bridge sight-screen, he remarked, "I was never in the same parish, let alone the same street."

The two men made a fascinating contrast: Richardson was quiet, modest, reserved and unassuming; Lockwood was erratic, obstreperous and inequable in both bowling and temperament.

On a day-in-day-out basis, there is little doubt that Lockwood was streets away from his redoubtable Surrey colleague, but it has been suggested often enough that, on his day, he might well have been the finest ever to have handled a cricket ball. Certainly, he was far more capable of making it do the unplayable than the unerringly constant Richardson.

 

[Richard]

Interesting. Richardson is one I have only ever heard very, very brief passing mention of, though Sean has mentioned him once or twice in high reverance and we know for a fact that none other than Neville Cardus named him when asked to select "six giants of the Wisden century" (the others being, naturally, WG, Trumper, Barnes, Hobbs and Bradman). To be chosen in such company is blessed indeed.

 

[FRAZ]

Are dontcloseyoureyes and nightprowler10 , the only other humans with an accurate and extremely intelligent judgment ?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Are dontcloseyoureyes and nightprowler10 , the only other humans with an accurate and extremely intelligent judgment ?

No, they stand dormant along side everyone else who didn't vote for Trueman.

 

[archie mac]

The only defence that the O.P. could possibly use for this conspicuous exclusion would be that he played in the same era as (and was quite obviously second to) Tom Richardson. Indeed, Lockwood confirmed as much late in life to Herbert Strudwick when, sitting in a wheelchair next to the Trent Bridge sight-screen, he remarked, "I was never in the same parish, let alone the same street."

The two men made a fascinating contrast: Richardson was quiet, modest, reserved and unassuming; Lockwood was erratic, obstreperous and inequable in both bowling and temperament.

On a day-in-day-out basis, there is little doubt that Lockwood was streets away from his redoubtable Surrey colleague, but it has been suggested often enough that, on his day, he might well have been the finest ever to have handled a cricket ball. Certainly, he was far more capable of making it do the unplayable than the unerringly constant Richardson.

CB Fry always thought that Lockwood was the better of the Surrey two. (for a little while Surrey had Lohmann as well!) I don't think Barnes or Bedser or Tate should be on lists like this

 

[archie mac]

Not even close mate. 88 wickets is hardly enough. Fantastic FC bowler though.

Let me say again, they did not play as many Tests in the olden days, so you have to think that their wicket tallies will be down quite a bit. Also FC was a long more important in those times

As well captains treated fast bowlers differently, often bowling them into the ground, and they did not get a new ball bar one an innings.

For a bowler under those conditions to be still bowling just as fast at the end of the day as at the begining says it all for me

 

[Anil]

was barnes a fast bowler? trueman for me...

 

[Days of Grace]

Two, SF (Sydney, not Stuart ) Barnes was in NO way a seam-bowler, he was a fast wristspinner. Better than all these bowlers on this list? Virtually beyond question. Seam-bowler? No (though he did send down the occasional seam-up ball as a variation).

Three, I'd only be happy to judge from the dawn of the 20th-century onwards. There were any number of magnificently effective seam-bowlers in the 19th, such as Lohmann, Richardson, Hearne etc. But I cannot vouch, at all, for the true nature of cricket in that time.

.

Ist paragraph: you speak as if you saw him play? Name your sources please.

2nd paragraph: I for one am getting sick and tired of you going on like a broken record about this. Fact: cricket was played before 1900. So, you don't count 1899 then? You speak as if it were too different sports, and FFS EVERY single time we have a thread about this, you bring up this point. You sound like a parrot FFS.

 

[aussie]

Two, SF (Sydney, not Stuart ) Barnes was in NO way a seam-bowler, he was a fast wristspinner. Better than all these bowlers on this list? Virtually beyond question. Seam-bowler? No (though he did send down the occasional seam-up ball as a variation).

Interesting assesment on him, have you ever got the chance to see any footage of him to make this judgement or did you just derive that based on what you have read?. Because personally i have never really been sure how to judge him, but forced to rate him highly based on his bradman-esque bowling record.

For me, as Test bowlers I'd go Bedser, Statham, Trueman, Willis, Snow. Larwood is almost certainly the best at domestic level - Cartwright aside - and alongside Bill Lockwood is almost certainly the most unfortunate to miss-out on a Test career of decent length. Judging on what did happen, rather than what could have happened, though, I'd go the above.

Don't agree with that rating at all. For me Trueman hands down has just got to be the best fast bowler to come out of this country closely followed by Statham then then you could have Snow, Willis, Larwood even Botham before we got those medium pace type bowlers like Bedser & Barnes TBH.