Morne Morkel vs Stuart Broad: Who's the better fast bowler?

[Bolo]

No, it's not exaggerated. 11 of those sixteen five-fors were six wickets or more, compared to only 1 for Morkel and five for Anderson. He's almost single handedly bowled sides out for under 100 three times, something that is very rare these days, and has three seven-fors (Dale Steyn has one). And unlike Morkel, none of the were Zimbabwe. 'Only two ten wicket hauls'. It's not that easy taking ten wicket hauls (or eleven in Broad's case) , he's taken eight in a match nine times as opposed to Morkel's two, and Morkel has never taken ten. Considering how rare five-fors are you are silly saying that five more across the same number of innings is not noteworthy. You wouldn't begrudge a batsman who had made seven or eight more centuries than another over the same time (going by the respective frequencies of centuries and five-fors). The four wicket haul count doesn't include five fors (the fifties thing so passionately debated on here). Broad has taken four or more wickets in an innings 31 times opposed to Morkel's 26, and has taken more wickets on average in those four plus innings. The characterisation of Morkel as consistent and Broad as mercurial is well backed up by their career performances.

Okay, reading this, I'll concede that he's more of a matchwinning bowler than the stats posted in this thread led me to believe. 5 and 6+ are not the same. My point is more to do with the value of these performances when considering an entire career though rather than the quality of the performances themselves.

I'm not denigrating the accomplishment of 10 or 5 wicket hauls as individual performances as you seem to be interpreting it. They are really tough to manage. What I'm saying is that a disproportionate amount of credit is given to them when assessing the quality of a bowler across their career. Broad has managed them 2% more often than Morkel. That 2% is a great accomplishment of its own right because of the difficulty, but 2% is still only 2%- I will take better performance in the other 98% any day.

Morkel's 4 + 5 wicket hauls still outweigh Broads 4 + 5 accounting for difference in matches played.

He has 7 ftr. Might be a record.

Stuart Broad's magnificent seven | Cricket | ESPNcricinfo

I checked Morkel's stats. Half of his 5 wicket hauls came for 23 runs or less. I'm not sure about spells, but you can't bowl too many overs for so few runs, and you are shredding a side irrespective of whether this happens in 1 spell or more. Normalising for the difference in matches, these 7 compared to Morkel's 4 is 1.6 performances across well over 200 innings.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I checked Morkel's stats. Half of his 5 wicket hauls came for 23 runs or less. I'm not sure about spells, but you can't bowl too many overs for so few runs, and you are shredding a side irrespective of whether this happens in 1 spell or more. Normalising for the difference in matches, these 7 compared to Morkel's 4 is 1.6 performances across well over 200 innings.

These 7 are in one single bowling spell, as in he bowled unchanged and took 5 wickets in that single spell. Not in one innings. If Morne really has 4 of those I'll concede, but I doubt it.

 

[Starfighter]

I can think of a couple of reasons to believe Broad is better, but the one most people are selecting is wrong. A good performance every 50 innings doesn't substantially increase your quality as a bowler. It increases your memorability, which causes a skewed perception on quality.

Being memorable is damned important though. If it wasn't then people wouldn't keep putting Lillee in all-time World XIs (example) when Marshall, Garner, Donald, Hadlee, Trueman, Ambrose, Imran, Waqar, Wasim, Lindwall, McGrath, Pollock and Steyn are all statistically superior if their averages are taken at face value.

 

[Bolo]

These 7 are in one single bowling spell, as in he bowled unchanged and took 5 wickets in that single spell. Not in one innings. If Morne really has 4 of those I'll concede, but I doubt it.

Not saying they are, I'm saying it doesn't really matter. Taking out half a team in a handful of bowlers overs for next to nothing is a similar result regardless of how many spells are bowled.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Not saying they are, I'm saying it doesn't really matter. Taking out half a team in a handful of bowlers overs for next to nothing is a similar result regardless of how many spells are bowled.

Getting wickets in bunches induces collapses and changes games.

 

[Bolo]

Being memorable is damned important though. If it wasn't then people wouldn't keep putting Lillee in all-time World XIs (example) when Marshall, Garner, Donald, Hadlee, Trueman, Ambrose, Imran, Waqar, Wasim, Lindwall, McGrath, Pollock and Steyn are all statistically superior if their averages are taken at face value.

Sure, it is important to a bowler you prefer. By all means, prefer Broad for being memorable. It doesn't impact his quality to the extent people believe though.

If you want to select Lillee over Waqar by ignoring stats because he was the more rounded bowler with the greater range of skillsets and guile, sure. Waqar, or Ambrose or Imran had far more memorable spells, but it doesn't make them a better bowler. Quality exists outside of a few overs.

 

[Bolo]

Getting wickets in bunches induces collapses and changes games.

Yup, but 5 or more for 23 or less is still taking wickets in bunches and changing games. It's not like he could have spread those out over 3 sessions.

 

[SeamUp]

Just out of interest. Batsmen they've dismissed the most in their test careers.

M.Morkel

1. Cook (12) - 36 innings
2. Hussey (8) - 19 innings
3. Strauss (8) - 20 innings
4. Ponting (6) - 19 innings
5. Vijay (6) - 20 innings
6. KP (5) - 18 innings

Broad

1. Clarke (11) - 40 innings
2. AB (10) - 25 innings
3. Taylor (9) - 26 innings
4. Rogers (8) - 28 innings
5. Watson (8) - 30 innings
6. Amla (8) - 33 innings

 

[SeamUp]

Sure, it is important to a bowler you prefer. By all means, prefer Broad for being memorable. It doesn't impact his quality to the extent people believe though.

If you want to select Lillee over Waqar by ignoring stats because he was the more rounded bowler with the greater range of skillsets and guile, sure. Waqar, or Ambrose or Imran had far more memorable spells, but it doesn't make them a better bowler. Quality exists outside of a few overs.

I wonder how bad their garbage was and how many times their garbage happened. Both could bowl garbage when they wanted to.

 

[StephenZA]

One of the best things Morkel did for SA, was his ability to get left-handers out... which Steyn sometimes struggled to do.

And in saying that, the number of times Morkel would get a wicket get to bowl one more over and Steyn/Philander would come on was often... may be part explanation why he got less 4+ wicket hauls.

 

[Rasimione]

One of the best things Morkel did for SA, was his ability to get left-handers out... which Steyn sometimes struggled to do.

And in saying that, the number of times Morkel would get a wicket get to bowl one more over and Steyn/Philander would come on was often... may be part explanation why he got less 4+ wicket hauls.

For most of his career, Morkel has never been given the new ball as opposed to Broad. Wouldn't that have an effect on his performances?

 

[Bolo]

I wonder how bad their garbage was and how many times their garbage happened. Both could bowl garbage when they wanted to.

This is one of my main criticisms of Morkel. For all that he appears consistent across his career, he bowled a whole lot of trash spells. He could still pick up wickets when bowling trash (a point over Broad), but the extent to which he leaked runs and relieved pressure on opposition hurt his status.

My others are the amount of overs bowled. Broad has dropped a lot in pace likely related to workload. It's not clear how Morkel would have handled it.

The third is to do with lengths. Too much back of a length bowling is what really held both of their individual performances back. I feel like Morkel is more accountable though. England had a phase of instructing broad to do this as an enforcer, but to my knowledge Morkel selected length of his own accord.

 

[SeamUp]

This is one of my main criticisms of Morkel. For all that he appears consistent across his career, he bowled a whole lot of trash spells. He could still pick up wickets when bowling trash (a point over Broad), but the extent to which he leaked runs and relieved pressure on opposition hurt his status.

My others are the amount of overs bowled. Broad has dropped a lot in pace likely related to workload. It's not clear how Morkel would have handled it.

The third is to do with lengths. Too much back of a length bowling is what really held both of their individual performances back. I feel like Morkel is more accountable though. England had a phase of instructing broad to do this as an enforcer, but to my knowledge Morkel selected length of his own accord.

It was mainly a criticism of both. But I do think some criticisms are true but at the same time Morkel found away around the world to be more consistent than Broad so I agree with all arguments either way in this debate.

I wonder what Morkel's stats are when he bowled with the new ball ? Just out of interests sake.

 

[Stefan9]

Neither are atg's but morkel just shades it for me.

 

[Bolo]

Here's a way breakdown actual effects of performances we consider matchwinning. Morkel has 8 5 wicket hauls. 4 of those matches were draws and 4 were wins. Normalised for total number of games, this is 5.4 wins and 5.4 draws. Broad has 16 5 wicket hauls. 8 wins, 4 losses, three draws.

Maybe Broads exceptional performances have led to better results than Morkel's have. 2.6 wins extra is more wins if you don't mind ignoring the losses, and maybe it's fair to do this because RSA on the whole have been a bit stronger than England over this time period. But broad has 'spent' 95 wickets out of a career total of 410 to get these 2.6 wins. 23%. Morkel in contrast as 'spent' 13% of his career wickets on his five fors. Broad is picking up 10% fewer wickets per match across 100 games for the sake of his 2.6 extra wins, and doing so at a significantly higher average than Morkel. And this assumes that England would not have won if not for these broad performances, so in reality this 2.6 wins is a theoretical maximum of 2.6 wins extra.

It's hard to tell how many extra wins Morkel's superior performances in the other 100 games would result in. It seems likely to be more than the maximum 2.6 Broad has won, and perhaps by a substantial difference, but if it isn't, the difference is negligible- it's not appropriate to judge Broad as better due to a more lobsided record either way.

 

[Bolo]

It was mainly a criticism of both. But I do think some criticisms are true but at the same time Morkel found away around the world to be more consistent than Broad so I agree with all arguments either way in this debate.

I wonder what Morkel's stats are when he bowled with the new ball ? Just out of interests sake.

Yup. Both to be criticised on poor performances. Broad more so as per previous post of mine. Broad's method of underperforming at times (no wickets) would arguably be less damaging to RSA (who can always take wickets, but often can't afford to leak runs) and visa versa.

Plenty of arguments for Morkel being better as well. My feeling is, on the whole he probably was. Too close for me to have voted in this though. I'm just presenting the best arguments for Broad being better I can think of.

You can get some idea on new ball from statsguru by chosing bowling positions. I'm not sure it's exactly what you want though.

 

[akilana]

It's preference I guess since their major stats (average, wpm, sr) are relatively close. But Broad's ability to run through an opposition is miles ahead of Morkel and I think that's just far more valuable to winning test matches than what Morkel does.

.

Yes big hauls helps so is taking wickets consistently otherwise Mitchel Johnson wouldn’t have been dropped ever in his career.

When a good pitch for bowling is presented, Broads gets to have a crack at the opposition with the new ball and he only has Anderson for competition.
Morkel on the other hand, only gets to bowl after Steyn and Vern taking their share of wickets which limits his chances of taking big hauls. Morkel took 4-for or better, more frequently than Broad. Morkel also has better average and SR. Despite competition, he still took more wickets per test than Broad.
Morkel shades the away record too with better average, SR, better 5-for rate etc.

 

[Bijed]

I not necessarily sure that comparing the career figures of these two is the best was to assess their relative quality as bowlers, in that Broad took a fair while to find his feet at test level (or, less politely, he was bit crap for quite a while), but did eventually turn a corner and whilst he's definitely had his ups and downs since then, he's on the whole kept up the standard of being pretty good. Whereas Morkel I would say (and I'm happy to be corrected on this) fairly quickly hit a perfectly good level of performance and more or less kept that up through the majority of his career then finished up extremely impressively (or at least his career wasn't quite as variable as Broad's has been). My point being that if you're assessing their whole careers, it'd be wrong not count Broad's iffy start against him, but that, currently dip in form notwithstanding, Broad's career figures still undersell him somewhat by not reflecting how good he has become - by which I'm not saying that he's become incredible or anything, but since he became good I'd rate him as better than Morkel, though not by a huge margin.

Love Morne though

 

[srbhkshk]

I do think it is justified to remove a portion of a player who has played longer, but it's hard to do that for England players as they just play so many more tests than average.

 

[Furball]

I'm inclined to go with Broad, and I will freely admit my bias on this one given I watch a decent chunk of England add rarely watch South Africa these days.

Having said that, I was surprised to notice someone in the South Africa v Australia thread say Morkel had finished with a sub 28 average, which means he's had an impressive few years that I hadn't really noticed. Still tend to think of Morkel as a consistent workhorse rather than as a match winner.

Having said that, you probably want both in your team, reckon they'd compliment each other really well actually, but my preference would be for the bowler who can blow a batting lineup wide open when he's on. That would be Broad.