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Greatest Overseas Bowler

GOAT Overseas Bowler


  • Total voters
    29

Window

U19 Vice-Captain
The Ratios the great bowlers make with their peers in away games from mine and @Coronis's posts

Barnes: 1.81
McGrath: 1.60
Steyn: 1.56
Hadlee: 1.43
Ambrose: 1.28
Bumrah: 1.27
Marshall: 1.24

obviously, some like Marshall, McWarne and Ambrose to an extent have insane support affecting the numbers
When you compare against team peers only (based on Coronis’ post).

Hadlee: 1.86
McGrath: 1.5
Bumrah: 1.44
Steyn: 1.35
Ambrose: 1.23
Marshall: 1.17

Hadlee’s performance relative to his team is ridiculous but I’m more surprised by McGrath’s figures. Thought he had better support from the pacemen in his team. Obviously Warne played that role but I would have thought the others would’ve been decent.
 

kyear2

Hall of Fame Member
Marshall, McWarne had pretty good batting line ups to boost their numbers too tbf
Marshall's batting support the 2nd half of his career, essentially post '84 isn't quite on the level of McWarne's.

Steyn also had some handy batting as well.
 
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subshakerz

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The reason its Marshall:

- Plenty of SC success
- Arguably the best ever in England
- Still very good in Australia

Bumrah can't make it because he lacks the ability to play a long test series.
 

subshakerz

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Honestly I think the best overseas bowler as of for now is between the 3 usual suspects: Hadlee, McGrath, and Marshall.
McGrath is better than Hadlee away. More deadly in England in seaming conditions. Slightly more success in India. Did very well in SA and WI too.

Hadlee too concentrated in Aus and Eng.
 

Johan

Hall of Fame Member
McGrath is better than Hadlee away. More deadly in England in seaming conditions. Slightly more success in India. Did very well in SA and WI too.
More importantly, faced different tiers of batting in India, Hadlee faced a team through transition, McGrath bowled to some absurd batting line-ups.
 

subshakerz

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More importantly, faced different tiers of batting in India, Hadlee faced a team through transition, McGrath bowled to some absurd batting line-ups.
To be fair, Hadlee bowled to some great Aus and WI lineups..but not as much away.
 

kyear2

Hall of Fame Member
More importantly, faced different tiers of batting in India, Hadlee faced a team through transition, McGrath bowled to some absurd batting line-ups.
Yeah, I don't agree with the sentiment that some have that Hadlee was better or even the equal to McGrath.

McGrath for me is 2nd only to Marshall.

Bumrah has the potential to elevate himself to that tier, but he has to not only maintain the numbers, which would be difficult enough, but also improve his durability.

I've never seen a great fast bowler "handled" to the extent that he is. I've seen all the others hold down an end for a session. He can't.
 

Johan

Hall of Fame Member
I've never seen a great fast bowler "handled" to the extent that he is. I've seen all the others hold down an end for a session. He can't.
The thing with Bumrah is his action gives him a lot, his release point is multiple centimetres closer to the batsman than most other bowlers, making the time needed for the ball to get to the bat lesser. Secondly, it also is that he releases from an angle where you always feel the ball is coming in so playing him late is very hard, and thirdly he hits the deck extremely hard due to his action and extracts more than others from the pitch.

But the action is just not sustainable, he is biologically suited for it but even then the way he moves and the amount of effort he puts into each ball, it really looks like his hand would fall off one day. He is already at a point where he can't play more than 3 of 5 Tests, and these are major overseas Tests, he also cannot bowl more than 4 or 5 overs in a spell and England used that beautifully, and finally I still think even with all the precautions he generally takes, He was injured or had a problem at the end of the day considering he didn't bowl at all at the end.
 

OverratedSanity

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Think I rate Ambrose and Hadlee's away records higher than McGrath's. He's arguably ahead overall (close with hadlee) because of his record at home on flattish Aussie decks.
 

DrWolverine

International Captain
The only place Richard Hadlee has a poor record is Pakistan. He played one series there in 1977. He was young and it was just his 6th series.

Richard Hadlee has an extraordinary record in Australia, England, India, SriLanka and NewZealand.

He played one series in WI. 4 Tests. 15 wkts @ 27.
 

Coronis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Think I rate Ambrose and Hadlee's away records higher than McGrath's. He's arguably ahead overall (close with hadlee) because of his record at home on flattish Aussie decks.
I can’t remember who it was, but someone mentioned re: McGrath that his home record wasn’t all that impressive, as others during that period in the 00’s also managed some great records. It was his dominance away that set him apart. Averaging under 20 away, the only other pacer who managed under 25 was Walsh who only played a few right at the start of the decade.
 

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