Ranking the candidates for best fast bowler ever - ~20 contenders

[Mr Miyagi]

I know that, but where do you draw the line?

125 km/h seam up. 130 km / h spinning. Or thereabouts. Or even 125 for both.

I base this on 120 km/h = club hemet but 130 km//h = intl helmet unless viv or richie.

Ftr - i love watching a good batsman with no idea due to pace!

 

[Burgey]

You’d have loved the 2013/14 Ashes then. Few things worse than facing someone who’s just too quick for you. To be a test player and go through it must be very deflating.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

You’d have loved the 2013/14 Ashes then. Few things worse than facing someone who’s just too quick for you. To be a test player and go through it must be very deflating.

Yeah watched it. I loved MJ but also predicted his retirement, even if KW and Tayloy beat me by a bit :P

Thommo was scarier longer imo as a non Aussie.

In fact I think Thommo's SR and ave means he is better than his ave like Dhoni vs Butller in odi :P

 

[OverratedSanity]

125 km/h seam up. 130 km / h spinning. Or thereabouts. Or even 125 for both.

I base this on 120 km/h = club hemet but 130 km//h = intl helmet unless viv or richie.

Ftr - i love watching a good batsman with no idea due to pace!

aka every time NZ batsmen faced Shoaib (apart from the 2011 WC)

 

[Burgey]

Yeah no helmets helped him too. Johnson a left handed Thommo really, maybe a yard slower but still scary with that slingy action where you can’t pick up the ball. God it’s awful facing blokes like that.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

aka every time NZ batsmen faced Shoaib (apart from the 2011 WC)

Please. Waqar made us his bitch in the early 90's.

 

[Starfighter]

yeah it's tough^.

Barnes and O'Reilly from all reports bowled a very similar style. Fast bowler's run-up followed by a quick spinning ball. But for some reason in my mind Barnes was medium pace and O'Reilly spin

No, Barnes and O'Reilly aren't that similar. You watch that Bedser video? That's what Barnes was supposed to have bowled, or I've heard even slightly faster. Here's the grainy, muddy footage of him if you can make it out. O'Reilly (here) was distinctly slower and never had his slips as far back.

Is Tyson in that league? We can arguably throw in Snow, Miller, Fazal, Johnston, Thomson etc. too if Tyson is included.

I thought Tyson (short career) and Larwood (short career and distinctly worse test record than the others) were the most contestable selections.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

Yeah no helmets helped him too. Johnson a left handed Thommo really, maybe a yard slower but still scary with that slingy action where you can’t pick up the ball. God it’s awful facing blokes like that.

Thommo smacked Crowe with helmet post shoulder injury. That mofo was deadly.

KW and Ross treat MJ like a net bowler. Fact

 

[Starfighter]

Yeah no helmets helped him too. Johnson a left handed Thommo really, maybe a yard slower but still scary with that slingy action where you can’t pick up the ball. God it’s awful facing blokes like that.

For what it's worth, I can't help but notice that a lot of older bowlers (mostly pre WWII and a lot pre WWI) had actions that could be described as 'slingy' in some way.

 

[Starfighter]

KW and Ross treat MJ like a net bowler. Fact

Even Malcolm Marshall would have been a net bowler on that Perth pitch. It was dreadful.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

For what it's worth, I can't help but notice that a lot of older bowlers (mostly pre WWII and a lot pre WWI) had actions that could be described as 'slingy' in some way.

If I could turn back time I'd bowl 15 degrees min too.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Please. Waqar made us his bitch in the early 90's.

Pretty much any decent Pakistani quick did tbh.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

Even Malcolm Marshall would have been a net bowler on that Perth pitch. It was dreadful.

Greatbatch made him one 91. But MJ was a 'superstar' still in 15. :P

I get your point, my point is I predicted MJ's demise (one of my best calls).

 

[Starfighter]

If I could turn back time I'd bowl 15 degrees min too.

Slingy as in arm-goes-behind-the-back. Not flingy as in Shabbir Ahmed.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

Pretty much any decent Pakistani quick did tbh.

Nah Waqar was worse - it was like which batsman will fall over and be bowled digging out a yorker next.


If you watched Bond bowl to India you'd know my pain

 

[Starfighter]

But MJ was a 'superstar' still in 15.

No he wasn't, it was quite clear the previous summer that the spark had gone. What channel 9 said does;t count.

I get your point, my point is I predicted MJ's demise (one of my best calls).

Nobody gives a flying ****. Especially as you weren't even here.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

No he wasn't, it was quite clear the previous summer that the spark had gone.


Nobody gives a flying ****. Especially as you weren't even here.

Who cares where it was? I made it on a rl forum against Aussie support and I was right with a year to spare.


That's better than my SL to win 96 WC call imho.

 

[Mr Miyagi]

No he wasn't, it was quite clear the previous summer that the spark had gone. What channel 9 said does;t count.


Nobody gives a flying ****. Especially as you weren't even here.

To you maybe - but I made it againsylt popular Aussie opinion. You may be an Aussie - but are you popular opinion?

 

[OverratedSanity]

Still probably the most fun spell of bowling I've watched. It was so one-note as well. All he was doing was bowling yorkers over and over and the batsmen knew what was coming as well, but it didn't matter because he was just too ****ing quick. Blew out his hamstring after he was done too and couldnt bowl the rest of the match. Legend

 

[Burgey]

Thommo was just nasty with it too.

I can’t inagine what it must be like facing those blokes. When I was about 20 I had the displeasure of playing against a bloke who later played all of two Shield games for nsw. He was coming back from injury and had a game in the park before going back to grade, which was fine.

But facing this bloke with a two piece ball on a wet Astro deck was the worst thing I ever went through as a batsman. Just felt helpless and physically threatened. He was down the hill, no sight screen, pissed off to be playing where he was and hooping inswingers (out swingers to me) at really, really serious pace. I must have played and missed a half dozen times, and the thing was he could have bowled at me all day and I never would have hit one, they were going that far that fast.

He got me out when I tried to hook one, top edged it into my lid and he *walked* down the deck and caught it standing next to me.

Worst feeling ever. Not Cracker at school boys when I didn’t know enough to be scared, not Dougeh in my late 20s/ early 30s when I knew my game were as bad as that. It wasn’t that I wasn’t good enough - I knew that - it was fear and being helpless because of the physical threat. There’s nothing like it. I can’t inagine what it’s like being a gun international player and just being done for pace and being scared. Ridiculous.

That’s why when these buffoons like ***** come on here and wax lyrical about the joys of finger spin, you just have to take it with a grain of incel salt and write it off as the effete subset of the game it really is. The sad provenance of the vegetarian cricketer.