DrWolverine
International Captain
Muralitharan is underrated
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Scyld Berry 30 greatest test fast bowlers
- Thread starter DrWolverine
- Start date
subshakerz
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
He battles Lara for me at no.10 in my greatest cricketer list
Johan
Hall of Fame Member
Oh, Oh Wow lol, I don't think he dislodges either top 6 Bats or bowls in my list, Bradman is Bradman and Imran obviously wins as an AR too, Kallis and Hammond knock on the door too
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
It's not Top 10 cricketers though, it's Top 10 in the last 4 decades. Also, having Warne at 3 and Murali not in Top 10 is everything wrong with a certain kind of Cricket journalists.
Coronis
Hall of Fame Member
So Wasim’s batting puts him above Ambrose and McGrath.
Thala_0710
International Captain
Maybe he factored in a bit of ODI cricket too there
Coronis
Hall of Fame Member
Pretty sure McGrath at least was also an ODI ATG. Not sure about Curtly.
Johan
Hall of Fame Member
I doubt you'd say the same if Murali was at 3 and Warne wasn't in the top 10 tbh
subshakerz
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I have two different lists. Greatest cricketers and best cricketers.
The latter is pretty much mainly ARs and neither Lara or Murali make it in that.
capt_Luffy
Hall of Fame Member
It will be equally wrong just in the other direction, aka, a different batch of journalists.
Johan
Hall of Fame Member
I don't think he makes my top 10 list in greatness too.
Burgey
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BoyBrumby
Englishman
I don't have a problem with Jasprit at #1 myself; it's at worst a defendable position.
He has 200+ test wickets at <20 apiece. Pretty sure that's unique in the annals. If he (god forbid) walked out in front of that hypothetical bus tomorrow I reckon he'd be thought of as the best in half a century.
Johan
Hall of Fame Member
subshakerz
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Both have strong claims to be in the top 10 in greatness. Murali a bit moreso.
Coronis
Hall of Fame Member
The only other player to have 200+ wickets at an average of sub 20 is Shaun Pollock. At 50 tests he had 210 @ 19.86 with 11 5’fers and 0 10’fers.
This is true and it also applies to several other bowlers here. There has rarely been much consensus around the relative ranking of fast bowlers. Back in the nineteenth century people couldn't decide which of the Surrey pair Richardson and Lockwood was superior. The greatest-ever tag passed hesitatingly from them through Ted McDonald, Larwood, Lindwall and Lillee, but it was never unanimous.
For fifteen years after Packer the view in England at least was that West Indian fast bowlers were the best around. Holding, "Rolls Royce of Fast Bowlers", was certainly rated higher then than now. Ambrose's number three ranking in a Telegraph list is not a surprise.
Scyld Berry writes for a pro-establishment newspaper but has always held alternative views. He is a former Wisden editor. With lists such as these the writer sometimes produces the pen portraits, then leaves the editorial team to decide the order with an eye on stimulating debate and sales.
The likes of Barnes, Lohmann, Bedser and Fazal Mahmood were not fast bowlers and would not have been considered.