Rank These 21st Century Pacers

[morgieb]

Wonder if you remember the Broad v Ishant meme thread just preceding the 2011 series. The sun is rising for the Ishant defenders after a decade and Ishant probably will be better in the forever stakes once both careers are done lol. Who would?ve thought? Definitely not me in 2011.

IIRC that was "would Stuart Broad make the Indian team" so was basically Broad v Ishant v Sreesanth. The people that said Sreesanth (you and PEWS IIRC) don't come out looking good in hindsight, though it obviously wasn't a terrible opinion to hold at the time.

 

[trundler]

I remember the last 2 series Anderson and Philander had in Asia. Really horrible pitches where spinners took basically all the wickets. Maharaj got a 9fer and in the England series a new record for highest proportion of wickets falling to spin was made. Stats in Oz look fairly even too but Philander definitely had better highs from memory. Anderson contributed to a series win in India so there's that. Philander got injured way more for a guy his pace. On greentops Philander was just so deadly. Was running through lineups on his own even with Steyn at the other end at times. And he had X factor too. When Steyn choked (in England from memory), Philander come through. Anderson in England is a master of his craft too but I feel Philander bullied harder in favourable conditions. Overall, Anderson but it's close.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I remember the last 2 series Anderson and Philander had in Asia. Really horrible pitches where spinners took basically all the wickets. Maharaj got a 9fer and in the England series a new record for highest proportion of wickets falling to spin was made. Stats in Oz look fairly even too but Philander definitely had better highs from memory. And he had X factor too. When Steyn choked (in England from memory), Philander come through.

All of this is basically either flat out incorrect or somewhat misleading. Philander looked completely pedestrian in matches where shami and yadav were running through SA. And I don't think philanders best efforts in Australia can touch what anderson did in the 2010 ashes.

 

[stephen]

All of this is basically either flat out incorrect or somewhat misleading. Philander looked completely pedestrian in matches where shami and yadav were running through SA. And I don't think philanders best efforts in Australia can touch what anderson did in the 2010 ashes.

Philander won the 2017 series in Australia for SA. In the process he ended the careers of Australian batsmen.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Australia's lineup was a complete joke. I'd expect you as an Australian fan to remember how dreadful they were. Several orders of magnitude worse than the one in 2010 which itself wasn't good.

 

[trundler]

All of this is basically either flat out incorrect or somewhat misleading. Philander looked completely pedestrian in matches where shami and yadav were running through SA. And I don't think philanders best efforts in Australia can touch what anderson did in the 2010 ashes.

Philander tailed off massively in the last 2 years. 2017 vs Oz was phenomenal. You're probs basing this off the 2018 series whereas I just remember Philander wrecking us in 2012 and also owning England hard when Steyn went missing. Philander was definitely more condition reliant though.

 

[trundler]

Australia's lineup was a complete joke. I'd expect you as an Australian fan to remember how dreadful they were. Several orders of magnitude worse than the one in 2010 which itself wasn't good.

Yeah ok this is a fair point. I could be wrong about who was better in Australia because I was going by memory and my memory isn't half as good as yours.

 

[OverratedSanity]

The 2012 series in England is the one where you're saying Steyn went missing? Yeah, I have to question whether you watched it tbh. That wasn't the impression I got watching it at all. Was the best bowler on show.

 

[trundler]

The one with the KP thrashing. I definitely remember thinking Vern was better.

Edit: by went missing I don't mean Steyn was totally crap. My impression is that when Steyn had his expensive days Philander offered control.

 

[Howe_zat]

IIRC that was "would Stuart Broad make the Indian team" so was basically Broad v Ishant v Sreesanth. The people that said Sreesanth (you and PEWS IIRC) don't come out looking good in hindsight, though it obviously wasn't a terrible opinion to hold at the time.

Yes it was.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yes it was.

Quite. Less terrible opinion to hold right now imo (the would he make India's xi bit, not the Sreesanth bit)

 

[vcs]

The one with the KP thrashing. I definitely remember thinking Vern was better.

Edit: by went missing I don't mean Steyn was totally crap. My impression is that when Steyn had his expensive days Philander offered control.

Steyn took a matchwinning haul in one the Tests but also got taken apart by Pietersen in the 2nd match. Philander was definitely the better bowler in the series.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Barely any mentions of Morkel in this thread is interesting. I remember some people arguing Morkel>Broad at the time of his retirement.

 

[vcs]

Morkel kind of flattered to deceive for a good part of his career and seemed content to play third fiddle to Steyn and Philander, but he really stepped up right towards the end and retired on a high IIRC.

 

[Pothas]

Steyn took a matchwinning haul in one the Tests but also got taken apart by Pietersen in the 2nd match. Philander was definitely the better bowler in the series.

Yeah took 5 in the Amla 300 match. Don't remember Philander doing all that much until the last game. Both had decent series in a good win.

Steyn was never at his best against England for whatever reason.

 

[Pothas]

I mean if you scale Anderson to play for Sri Lanka and correspondingly play less tests but have a similar career i.e. career as a pacer with high longevity while doing disproportionately better at home and allowing a couple of additional points of bowling average taking into account SL is not as friendly for pace bowling as England and add averaging 15+ runs more with the bat and being an OP ODI WC bowler to the package, you get Chaminda Vaas and Vaas is underrated/forgotten here more than anything.

To provide context, Vaas had even more longevity than Anderson and played for 16 years but could play 'only' 111 tests in that period and took 355 wickets @ 29 with a home/away split of 26/32.

I don't think your hypothetical holds up here tbh.

I was not really talking about Anderson actually as a Sri Lankan bowler because obviously he would have had a totally different career. Just that perceptions would be different if he played for a different country, should probably have used New Zealand or West Indies as an example. Would be way more underrated in general but liked way more on here.

 

[trundler]

I was not really talking about Anderson actually as a Sri Lankan bowler because obviously he would have had a totally different career. Just that perceptions would be different if he played for a different country, should probably have used New Zealand or West Indies as an example. Would be way more underrated in general but liked way more on here.

Yeah, people going on a crusade against perceived biases elsewhere is one of the more annoying things on here. Most of it is down to overcompensating for the Alec Stewart types which accomplishes nothing other than multiplying cringe.

 

[ma1978]

Rabada massively underrated here. Guy has a sub 23 average with nearly 200 wickets and he is under 25. He is very arguably no. 2 after Steyn.

 

[ankitj]

Yeah, Rabada had bad year or so and now people have started completely ignoring how many 5-fers and 10-fers he got in virtually no time.

 

[trundler]

Top 5 for me but has been a bit of an htb tbh. Insane talent though