• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

The bowler of the 90s and 00s

Choose TWO bowlers of your choice as the best of 90s and 00s


  • Total voters
    71

watson

Banned
Just love how you can say "flatterred to decieve" about a guy with over 300 wickets at a decent average, great strike rate and high wpm.
That's right. No one is saying that Lee is in the same league as Lindwall, Lillee, or McGrath - but rather he was an effective new ball ally who took his fair share of wickets.
 
Last edited:

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
My enduring memory of Brett Lee was his ability to 'soften up' the batsman so that they were ready for McGrath and Warne. And this he did remarkably well on Australian pitches. For example, during his 8 Tests against India he took 45 wickets at 27 runs each.

Overall Brett Lee played 76 Tests and finished with 310 wickets at 31. His SR was an excellent 53.

Interestingly enough, this is comparable to Stuart Broad who I see as a similar sort of aggressive fast bowler. So far Broad has played 73 Tests and has 261 wickets at 30. His SR is 59.

So no, I don't think that Brett Lee's skill level or record are as ordinary or dire as you imply Burgey.
Did you watch him bowl between 2001 and 2007? He was crap for the most part. Bouncer/ Yorker and nowt in between. He did well vs India in his debut series and again in the controversial series out here in 07/08. Honestly, he was **** in England in 01 and cod ordinary in 05.

He didn't soften up anyone for McGrath and Warne. What he mostly did when he bowled was let true pressure off by bleeding 4-5 rpo per spell. Once Mcgrarh went he had that good year or two then injuries did for him, which was a shame tbf because he actually seemed to have grown up.
 

bagapath

International Captain
Did you watch him bowl between 2001 and 2007? He was crap for the most part. Bouncer/ Yorker and nowt in between.
thats a blatant lie! he would also throw a beamer once in a while...

brett lee took coaching advice from javagal srinath. enough said.
 

watson

Banned
OK fair enough. But I don't think that we should blame poor old Javagal too much for Lee's ****house bowling for the best part of a decade.
 

Valer

First Class Debutant
Rather bench Ponting than Gillespie? Absurd
I'd be highly surprised to see the replacement batsman average less than 43ish.

I'd rather Law / Love /Lehmann / whoever \

than have a bowling attack of
2 of Lee (often out of form enough to be dropped, generally massively overrated)/ Bichel / Kasper/ McGill/ your pick from the shield
Mcgrath
Warne
 
Last edited:

Furball

Evil Scotsman
McGrath, Warne and Gilly the three biggest reasons for their dominance in that order imo. Having Gilchrist was a massive plus... Teams would sometimes get Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Martyn, Waugh out and then Gilchrist would come in and smash 75 (70) and undo all that work in an hour.
Come off it, Ponting and Hayden were much more important than Gilchrist.
 

cnerd123

likes this
TBH I'd say Gilly and Gillespie were worth more to Aus than Ponting too.

Ponting didn't add anything as skipper, and the amount of difference between him and the next best batsman available outside the XI wasn't as great as the difference between Gilly and the next best keeper/bat or Gillespie and the next best quick bowler.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
My arse.

It's your batsmen that breed consistency and Ponting between 2002 and 2006 went on a run that no batsman not named Don Bradman has ever been on in Test cricket.

Anyone who doesn't think Ponting was top 3 in terms of MVPs to Australia in that era is either on crack or is seriously underestimating him.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
My arse.

It's your batsmen that breed consistency and Ponting between 2002 and 2006 went on a run that no batsman not named Don Bradman has ever been on in Test cricket.

Anyone who doesn't think Ponting was top 3 in terms of MVPs to Australia in that era is either on crack or is seriously underestimating him.
I can accept people thinking McGrath & Warne were more important. Especially on CW where bowlers are generally rated as more valuable than batsmen. Gilchrist I wouldn't agree but I could understand. Anyone else is a non-starter though. Bizarre to see it even suggested tbh.
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
The whole point was McGrath was the most important player in the best team of the era, which establishes a fair bit of cred if if we're discussing the bowler or the era. Whether Ponting was more important than Gilchrist or Gillespie (he was btw) is irrelevant to the thread.
 
Last edited:

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
The whole point was McGrath was the most important player in the best team of the era, which establishes a fair bit of cred if if we're discussing the bowler or the era. Whether Ponting was more important than Gilchrist or Gillespie (he was btw) is irrelevant to the thread.
True.

However, they are going to be talking about Warne and Murali way more than about McGrath 70 years from now.
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
True.

However, they are going to be talking about Warne and Murali way more than about McGrath 70 years from now.
I'll have 140,000 posts on CW by then. I'll remind ppl how good he was.
 

watson

Banned
True.

However, they are going to be talking about Warne and Murali way more than about McGrath 70 years from now.
70 seems a strange amount of years to pick. Why not 60 or 80 years?

So anyway no, McGrath and Warne will still be mentioned in the same breath 100 years from now because their combined record makes them an inseparable duo like Ambrose and Walsh, or Wasim and Waqar.
 
Last edited:

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
McGrath was the irreplaceable.

Warne could be replaced with MacGill.

Ponting could've been replaced by Law, Love, Lehmann and a few others. Obviously he was a cut above them but the disruption caused by him not playing to the team would've been far less than McGrath's loss.

McGrath was the key to the team IMO.
Not really. MacGill was closer to Kumble than he was to Warne's/Murali's ilk. The closest spinners to Warne and Murali appeared about 50 years prior in Grimmett and O'Reilly. Not likely to see spinners as good as them for a while.

A McGrath-like bowler occurs basically every generation for Australia. Even McGrath (as well as most people during their careers considered Warne the better bowler.
 

Top