Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Well... respectible is relative, isn't it?I realise there are still some, but obviously their numbers have dwindled. How that came to be isn't really relevant to the point I was making, which is still that 4.5 is a respectable economy rate in the modern game.
There are lots of very poor bowlers around at the current time IMO - still doesn't make it impossible for a good bowler - seamer or spinner - to have an economy-rate in the low 4.Xs, or even (for the very, very best) below 4-an-over.
I don't think, as I say, such numbers have dwindled since we entered the modern ODI era (the end of the decade of the 1980s is as good a line to draw as any). How many bowlers with economy-rates below 4-an-over have there been if you take only games from 1990 onwards? I can only think of those 3 plus Angus Fraser, Curtley Ambrose, Wasim Akram, Adam Dale, Gavin Larsen, Andy Caddick, Alan Mullally, Courtney Walsh and PS de Villiers. Even top-class bowlers like Allan Donald, Damien Fleming, Darren Gough (for most of his career), Brian McMillan, Craig Matthews (3.94, but you know what I mean), Mark Ealham, Jason Gillespie (between 1999 and 2004\05), Chris Harris, Bryan Strang, Andrew Flintoff (from 2001\02 onwards), Nathan Bracken, Chaminda Vaas, Paul Reiffel, Ian Bishop, Ian Bradshaw, Reon King, Heath Streak, Waqar Younis (for more of his career than not), Mushtaq Ahmed, Shane Warne, Robert Croft, Kumara Dharmasena, Anil Kumble (until 1999\2000), Daniel Vettori, Saqlain Mushtaq and Harbhajan Singh had ERs a bit over 4-an-over.
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