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Your top ten TEST bowlers of ALL-TIME

The Sean

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
weldone said:
Then comes Harold Larwood, who arguably has had the best First-Class career for any pace bowler in the last 80 years or so. One wonders what he could have achieved in test level if some freak called Bradman was never born!
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G.I.Joe said:
10 Tests not involving Bradman, 37 wickets @ 23.18, SR 58.
11 Tests against Bradman, 41 wickets @ 33, SR 68.8.
There's a definite difference there.

However, Bradman's average was 87 against England in matches involving Larwood, and 91 otherwise. Larwood not much of a factor for him, apparently.
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Reckon you're in violent agreement here. :)
 
M

miscer

U19 Cricketer
murali
warne
ambrose
mcgrath
marshall
hadlee
donald
imran
lillee
akram

someone who could make it: steyn (possibly at the expense of donald)
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
It is bad enough restricting the great bowlers over nearly 140 years of Test cricket to just ten although most of us have seen not more than 20 years of the game at the top level.

Then to put spinners, medium pacers and fast bowlers in the same list; how does one compare Murali with Marshall or Grimmett with Larwood except by just some statistical formula. But then if we could agree on a statistical formula we might as well give the job to a computer and end the debate.

Then having managed a list of ten one has to rank them ! How do you compare Bedi with Verity let alone bowlers of different disciplines with a century to divide them?

Having managed even that, you are expected to justify your list and argue your choices against those of the others and so passionately at that :-)
 
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JBMAC

JBMAC

State Captain
SJS said:
It is bad enough restricting the great bowlers over nearly 140 years of Test cricket to just ten although most of us have seen not more than 20 years of the game at the top level.

Then to put spinners, medium pacers and fast bowlers in the same list; how does one compare Murali with Marshall or Grimmett with Larwood except by just some statistical formula. But then if we could agree on a statistical formula we might as well give the job to a computer and end the debate.

Then having managed a list of ten one has to rank them ! How do you compare Bedi with Verity let alone bowlers of different disciplines with a century to divide them?

Having managed even that, you are expected to justify your list and argue your choices against those of the others and so passionately at that :-)
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:):):)
 
fredfertang

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
8ankitj said:
Larwood's record before the bodyline series (where he benefited from the leg side field) - 45 wickets in 16 tests @ 34.84 (less than 3 wpm)

And because we are talking about TEST (in caps, as the OP put it :)) bowlers, I don't know if first class record is relevant. Even otherwise, there are quite a few cricketers who have great FC records but don't get rated so highly. Can't think of a bowler as an example immediately, but consider Vijay Merchant among batsmen.
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Larwood might have had the benefit of the leg side field but that's the only one he ever had - Bradman (and all other batsmen) had the twin advantages of playing on superb wickets and under the old lbw law - sure they had the occasional sticky wicket to put up with but fast bowlers like Larwood never got to take advantage of those
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
fredfertang said:
Larwood might have had the benefit of the leg side field but that's the only one he ever had - Bradman (and all other batsmen) had the twin advantages of playing on superb wickets and under the old lbw law - sure they had the occasional sticky wicket to put up with but fast bowlers like Larwood never got to take advantage of those
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The big problem a modern day fan has in assessing the greatness of a Larwood is that statistical measures are the only recourse he has or prefers to take. And that is as dicey a measure for measuring sportsmen over different generations as any one can think of . . .
 
kyear2

kyear2

International Coach
Isn't the best way to assess greatness is to evaluate how players performed againts one's peers. How they dominated their era and then try to project how they would perform in the modern era and with modern rules and conditions.
As Ian Chappell once said, the only rule is to assume that a champion in one era, would be one in any era.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
kyear2 said:
Isn't the best way to assess greatness is to evaluate how players performed againts one's peers. How they dominated their era and then try to project how they would perform in the modern era and with modern rules and conditions.
As Ian Chappell once said, the only rule is to assume that a champion in one era, would be one in any era.
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I completely agree with that and Ian Chappell is not the only one who has said that. Over the entire history of the game almost all great players and students of the game have said the same and yet the fans wish to compare players of different eras.

This is a good time pass in a pub but to take it to the level of seriousness and passion with which people will debate how Grimmett couldn't have been any a match of warne, purely based on their interpretation of the stats of the two is amusing to put it mildly.

Of course we all love to imagine what would happen if Bradman had to face the West Indian pacers of the 70's and 80's or how Tendulkar might have played Lindwall and Miller but to understand that Tendulkar is a master batsman in his time and would therefore have been a master batsman in all times is the sensible conclusion to draw. But then the same conclusion needs to be drawn from Grace and Trumper through to Hobbs, Hammond, Sobers and so on.

Once we accept that bit then the discussion becomes a purely interesting one which need not become a source of heated argument.

Instead of running down players of the past by looking up stats on the net and drawing conclusions from it, modern fans would do so much better to take the trouble to read of the players of the past and ideally not accounts written half a century later. There are enough very good accounts available of almost all the great players of the game (in the case of the batsmen running into double figures in the number of books in some case) which make for lovely reading and help understanding the game and its history.

Unfortunately, it is not the favoured method of aquiring knowledge of the greats of the past for many including some of the modern cricketers.. That is a real tragedy.
 
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H

hang on

State Vice-Captain
Instead of running down players of the past by looking up stats on the net and drawing conclusions from it, modern fans would do so much better to take the trouble to read of the players of the past and ideally not accounts written half a century later. There are enough very good accounts available of almost all the great players of the game (in the case of the batsmen running into double figures in the number of books in some case) which make for lovely reading and help understanding the game and its history.
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nicely put. however, the running down of players of today (well, from the early 70s onwards, which just happens to be the time when i started watching!) based on the relative advantages of better bats, pitches, protective advantages and so on and so forth that they possess is also rather annoying, and hagiographic accounts of past players and their deeds also need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

while i agree with the sentiment that a champion in one era would be a champion in any other, it is also fair to say that the average quality of cricketers has increased quite significantly over time.
 
ankitj

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
fredfertang said:
Larwood might have had the benefit of the leg side field but that's the only one he ever had - Bradman (and all other batsmen) had the twin advantages of playing on superb wickets and under the old lbw law - sure they had the occasional sticky wicket to put up with but fast bowlers like Larwood never got to take advantage of those
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Well, someone like Verity played in same circumstances, had to bowl to Bradman, and could not derive the benefits from a leg side field, yet has a much better bowling average than Larwood. If Larwood is a top 10 candidate, Verity should be a top 3 candidate! And then O'Reilly and Grimmet have even better records. So I am not convinced about Larwood yet.
 
weldone

weldone

Hall of Fame Member
fredfertang said:
Larwood might have had the benefit of the leg side field but that's the only one he ever had - Bradman (and all other batsmen) had the twin advantages of playing on superb wickets and under the old lbw law - sure they had the occasional sticky wicket to put up with but fast bowlers like Larwood never got to take advantage of those
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8ankitj said:
Well, someone like Verity played in same circumstances, had to bowl to Bradman, and could not derive the benefits from a leg side field, yet has a much better bowling average than Larwood. If Larwood is a top 10 candidate, Verity should be a top 3 candidate! And then O'Reilly and Grimmet have even better records. So I am not convinced about Larwood yet.
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The bolded part in fertang's post addresses your point regarding O'Reilly, Grimmett, Verity versus Larwood.
 
kyear2

kyear2

International Coach
Lets see if I can do this without looking at my previous list and see how close they are.

Malcolm Marshall
Glenn McGrath
Dennis Lillee
Shane Warne
Muttiah Muralitharan
Curtly Ambrose
Syd Brnes
Fred Trueman
Michael Holding
Bill O'Reilly/ Dale Steyn
 
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