DoG's Top 100 Test Bowlers Countdown Thread 100-1

[ankitj]

Dilip Doshi, L Shivramakrishnan, Ravi Shastri, Maninder Singh. Make what you can of it.

 

[Starfighter]

Some bowlers with the average of the rest of the bowling in their team during their career:

Lillee: 29.71
Marshall: 26.54
Hadlee: 37.05
Kapil: 37.45
Murali: 50.30 (!)(considering that Vaas played 95 tests with Murali and averaged 28.01 it shows how rubbish SL's bowling was otherwise)
Warne: 27.92
McKenzie: 35.41
Imran: 33.26
Willis: 30.55
Steyn: 32.39
Bedser: 35.63

Some calculations may be a bit out but whatever.

 

[AndrewB]

Spin attack wasn't too flash either. The quartet all retired before Kapil's time.

Venkataraghavan played into the 80s, and Kapil played a few Tests alongside Bedi and Chandrasekhar. Admittedly, they (the spinners) all averaged over 40 in those games.
He also played alongside Kumble at the other end of his career.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Venkataraghavan played into the 80s, and Kapil played a few Tests alongside Bedi and Chandrasekhar. Admittedly, they (the spinners) all averaged over 40 in those games.
He also played alongside Kumble at the other end of his career.

Can't have been more than a handful of games for all of them. For the entirety of the 80s, India's spinners were mostly crap apart from Doshi, who only had a 4 year career anyway.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Some bowlers with the average of the rest of the bowling in their team during their career:

Lillee: 29.71
Marshall: 26.54
Hadlee: 37.05
Kapil: 37.45
Murali: 50.30 (!)(considering that Vaas played 95 tests with Murali and averaged 28.01 it shows how rubbish SL's bowling was otherwise)
Warne: 27.92
McKenzie: 35.41
Imran: 33.26
Willis: 30.55
Steyn: 32.39
Bedser: 35.63

Some calculations may be a bit out but whatever.

Surprised Steyn's is so high.

 

[Starfighter]

Surprised Steyn's is so high.

That period when guys like Tsotsobe were being picked would help probably.

 

[Bolo]

Most of his career had Kallis past his best, Morkel before his best (he stepped it up around the time Steyn started getting injured), a 40ish average spinner, and some real tsotsobe style junk, plus good bats in the opposition

 

[OverratedSanity]

Also Tahir

 

[morgieb]

Surprised Steyn's is so high.

South Africa's attack before the 2011 World Cup (i.e. before Philander made his debut) was largely rubbish outside of him.

Bedser's being so high surprised me. Though I suppose during the late 40's England's bowling was often smashed.

 

[Days of Grace]

No.12

Curtly Ambrose (West Indies) 870

Quality Points: 756
Career Points: 113

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmat224iTrA

Career: 1988-2000
Wickets: 405
Gold Performances: 6
8/45 vs. England at Bridgetown 1990 (17.35)
6/34 vs. South Africa at Bridgetown 1992 (16.06)
6/74 vs. Australia at Adelaide 1993 (16.13)
7/25 vs. Australia at Perth 1993 (19.31)
6/24 vs. England at Port of Spain 1994 (17.73)
5/43 vs. Australia at Perth 1997 (15.02)
Silver Performances: 12
Bronze Performances: 10

Overall Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 21.01 (20.99) 55.33 (54.58) 4.72 (rank 20)
50 Innings Peak Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings (1990-1994): 18.00 50.40 6.10 (rank 13)
Non-Home Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 20.80 54.21 4.82 (rank 15)
Quality Opposition Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 23.34 59.96 4.27 (rank 48)

Perhaps the most intimidating bowler of all-time, Curtly Ambrose just misses out on a place in the top 10 (no.9-no.12 are separated by 5 points). His 6/24 and 7/25 are two of the most memorable bowling performances ever. In a sense, Ambrose was a bowler known for great performances but his record is also very consistent. The only fault in his record is his relatively poor strike-rate and PPI against quality opposition, which is interesting because he had two great series in Australia in the 1990s, taking 52 wickets in 9 matches. Outside of those two series however, he only took 129 wickets in 42 matches against the strong teams of his era. His new-ball partner Courtney Walsh in fact has a better record against quality opposition. Despite this, Ambrose will always be one of the first mentioned in discussions of great fast bowlers. One only needs to look back at Perth in 1993 or Port of Spain in 1994 to understand why.

 

[OverratedSanity]

1 Murali
2 Hadlee
3 Mcgrath
4 Marshall
5 Barnes
6 Imran
7 Warne
8 Trueman
9 O'Reilly
10 Steyn
11 Ambrose
12 Lillee
13 Grimmett
14 Donald
15 Waqar

Oooh, only slightly off on Ambrose. Knew he wouldn't be as high as others because of a relatively high SR and a kind of low WPM.

 

[Starfighter]

I didn't pick that at all.

 

[stephen]

First, Ambrose is at least half a dozen places too low. Second, that video was incredible. Third, Ambrose is the fast bowler that every fast bowler should want to be.

He's such an intimidating figure. Such an incredible bowler.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Ambrose's pumped up high-fiving celebration with that chain flailing all over the place was a sight for the gods. Pretty amazing that he was so exciting to watch despite being a metronome which isn't the most adrenaline-pumping style of bowling.

 

[Jarquis]

How the **** do you get run out by an underarm from fine leg?

 

[Starfighter]

How the **** do you get run out by an underarm from fine leg?

Play for England.

 

[smash84]

interesting analysis. I hadn't looked at Ambrose's stats in as much detail before. 129 wickets from 42 matches isn;t something i would expect from Ambrose. All that is stuck in my mind is him always troubling australia and being impossible to score off

 

[Starfighter]

Funnily enough when I went through a period a little while ago of looking at a few mid-nineties series I saw him described in a few videos and articles as being a 'turn up once a series' (on a favourable pitch), sporadic sort of bowler. Particularly with respect to 94/95 against Australia where he took nine wickets on the grossly underprepared, shaggy, sodden, out-of-character Trinidad pitch and took a pathetic four wickets in the other three matches despite sometimes appearing threatening.

 

[ankitj]

Wow. Didn't expect Ambrose to finish behind Donald, Waqar etc. But then what's the point of a list like this if it doesn't force us to reconsider our viewpoints.

 

[Migara]

Didn't see that coming.