• 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.

Greatest Bowler of All Time

Who is the Greatest Bowler of All Time?


  • Total voters
    53

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
No Tyson, Holding, Ambrose, McGrath, Akram, Davidson, Laker, Barnes, Botham, Miller etc? :P

Well, out of your list I'd probably go for Warne... just. It's just way too hard to pick a single bowler as the best ever though. Murali and warne are both greats that are hard enough to seperate on their own, as are say Hadlee and Imran or Lillee and Holding or Ambrose and Marshall... trying to pick one out of a big list is just impossible.

My pick for the most underrated bowler ever is definately Alan Davidson, since from what I've seen and read of him he must be very close to the best ever, and never seems to make these lists. The best I have ever seen with my own eyes is Glenn McGrath.
 

amokk1

U19 12th Man
Where the hell is Glen Mcgrath? The best bowler I've ever seen in my life. This also coming from an Indian supporter.
 

Tim

Cricketer Of The Year
I don't think we'll ever find a winner. This topic has come up many a time & it never gets anywhere.

Without Hadlee, im not sure cricket would be so popular in NZ.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
It’s probably a nearly impossible call to make. Across the decades one isn’t really comparing like-for-like.

On pure stats alone England’s George Lohmann (112 wickets @ 10.75 with a strike rate of 34.1) looks to have an unanswerable case. He was playing at a time (1886-96) when the ball held sway over the bat, but of players with over 100 wickets to their names his average is nearly 6 runs better than his closest rival, the legendary SF (Sydney) Barnes (189 wickets @ 16.43, strike rate 41.66). This suggests he was by far & away the best of his era.

I think being the best of one’s era is the most one can really ask of a bowler; I defy anyone to say with any certainty that Lohmann (or Barnes) was better than McGrath (or Pollock). Lohmann the bowler actually sounds quite like McGrath (not much above medium pace, metronomic accuracy, moves the ball both ways) from the little I’ve read about him.

Comparing seamers with spinners is much like comparing beef to chicken; largely a question of taste. I will say tho that top seamers generally take their wickets more quickly & for fewer runs…
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
George Lohmann was generally considered "slow-medium" (McGrath for most of his career was fast-medium if not fast - he certainly could touch 90mph and still comes pretty close on occasions), and I can't help highly doubting he'd have been anywhere near as successful in the 20th-century, let alone from the 1930s onwards.
Barnes was another matter and many correspondants who saw him and cricket of the 1930s (when it started to take-on some of it's identity of today) said he was the greatest bowler ever.
Of those named above (the lack of Barnes is unforgivable) I'd go for Marshall every time.
 

Link

State Vice-Captain
yeah, i should of siad, that i would pick Murali to. But im fully aware that you cant really compare a spinner to a pace bowler, but anyway
 

Tom Halsey

International Coach
Too many missed options. And for the best ever, no separating them (although I like Lohmann a hell of a lot, some will know why), but as a poll I'll vote Warne again.
 

Top