lol fair enough
But like I said, if we're arguing who is the best fast man of all time, Akram is going to get a lot of votes, it's crazy that the other poster (windies something) is so surprised by that so thats what Im responding too.
Objectively speaking, Akram, Marshall, Khan, Lillee, Holding, possibly McG and...Ambrose (??) are all up for debate. Often, Akram gets the nod. Marshall does too sometimes. McGrath probably fewer times BUT I always feel we cant talk of him as a "fast" bowler exactly.
If someone ranks Marshall higher, I wouldn't argue too much about that but if they're going to post all shocked and literally start saying theyve never heard of Akram being ranked higher then I'll call them out on their bs.
Mate, you need to sharpen up, philosophically-speaking you're all over the shop in your arguments.
When it suits you, you act like any consensus view of what cricket historians & contemporaries of the time think counts for very little, like your ignorant & absurd claim that Clive Lloyd keeps the likes of Headley, and the 3Ws out of an alltime West Indies Test XI. You clearly couldn't care less what cricket historians think about that, since there's a clear consensus that Headley and the 3Ws are all held in a higher regard than Lloyd, even if Lloyd was a great captain and fine batter in his own right.
However now that it suits your argument, suddenly it seems to hold a lot of water that some of the sky commentary team said they rated Akram very highly, and in some cases the best.
You then pretend there's this "objectively speaking" list of the very top bowlers of all-time, that doesn't appear to include Hadlee and Steyn, but does include Holding and Imran. Give me a break!
And this is after you listed your all time greatest English Test XI, with Gooch and Cook in the side, lol, which I could guarantee NONE of the sky commentators would agree with, not even Cooks' mum would agree with that, so why suddenly pretend you care about what cricket historians and past players think?
And incidentally, what gives the English Sky commentary team of Botham Athers and co, any more authority than any other group of past players? Akram didn't make Benaud's greatest Test XI, does that mean it's the end of any argument either? Of course not.
It's all well & good to have personal favourites when it comes to players, but this cricket community is much too smart and knowledgeable not to see through philosophical inconsistencies in posters arguments. If you have personal favourties, just be honest & say so, but making out there's some sort of objective universal consensus among past players and cricket historians that have Holding & Imran at some level above Steyn and Hadlee as bowlers, does make you look a tad foolish.
As someone who has read a lot of historians, past cricketers & cricket fans views, I can tell you quite confidently than if there's any universal consensus at all regarding the best modern pace bowler, then it's quite clearly Malcolm Marshall. I'd have thought most really knowledgeable fans would know this. This doesn't make Marshall categorically the best, & doesn't mean every past or current player thinks that, but it's certainly the consensus.