Best of the rest - WI

[Gob]

As most of you would agree, the islands of Caribbean has produced more fast bowling riches than any other nation. Even out of the pool of great fast men to have come from WI, Malcom Marshall and Curtly Ambrose stand out as the best of the best but how do you rate the rest? I've only caught the second half of Curtly's career so the mayhem of the great quarter was before my time so I personally would rate them based on anecdotes and numbers but those who have seen them may have different views

Joel Garner - Has the best stats. His average is even more miserly than Curtly

Michael Holding - Regarded as one of the fastest bowlers of his time and probably all times. Known for great spells and taking the pitch out of the equation

Andy Roberts - inferior statistically but held at highest regard by those who faced him. Also one of the few fast bowlers known for varying the pace upwards

Courtney Walsh - true workhorse and the ideal foil to his more famous partner. Amazing longevity

There are others aswell on the either side of affromentioned men such as Sylvester Clarke, Wes Hall, Charlie Griffiths and Ian Bishop, Patrick Patterson etc.

So what's your preference?

 

[aussie tragic]

Lack of Colin Croft as one of the famous pace quartet is appalling

 

[Gob]

Well given the plethora of fast bowlers they had, you aught to miss one

 

[aussie tragic]

Thats the thing about watching the Windies in the early 80's though, it wasn't one bowler stood out every time. It was Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft bowling as a never ending pace barrage that destroyed other teams.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Patrick Patterson
Wayne Daniels
Ian Bishop
Kenny Benjamin

 

[Line and Length]

Michael Holding was held in very high regard during his career. "Whispering Death" was a great athlete with real pace.

 

[Tom Flint]

Roy Gilchrist

 

[Daemon]

Amith Juggernauth

 

[aussie tragic]

Robert's, Holding and Garner played 17 Tests together. Pretty even considering Roberts was the 'old man' at the time

 

[Migara]

Probably Pakistani's disagree with the OP, because they produced fast bowlers in same numbers but much more varied than WI. Fast (Shoaib, Zahid), Swing (Wasim, Waqar, Imran), Seam (Asif) or unorthodox ones. Left arm and right arm varieties too.

Coming to the point,

Garner
Holding
Walsh
Roberts
Croft

would be my pick.

 

[Flem274*]

garner. truly great change bowlers are rare.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Amith Juggernauth

Lost in the abyss of Weat Indian leggier...Sarwan was a better leggie than him.

 

[Burgey]

Probably Pakistani's disagree with the OP, because they produced fast bowlers in same numbers but much more varied than WI. Fast (Shoaib, Zahid), Swing (Wasim, Waqar, Imran), Seam (Asif) or unorthodox ones. Left arm and right arm varieties too.

Coming to the point,

Garner
Holding
Walsh
Roberts
Croft

would be my pick.

Pakistan had one decent era of quicks and the occasional decent one before and since though. Then again, arguably so did the Windies.

Garner for me in this. In fact, I rate him higher than Ambrose. Was a ridiculous bowler.

 

[Burgey]

Michael Holding was held in very high regard during his career. "Whispering Death" was a great athlete with real pace.

He was great to watch, though tbh I don’t think he was as skilful as several of his team mates and countrymen over the years.

 

[Gob]

Pakistan had one decent era of quicks and the occasional decent one before and since though. Then again, arguably so did the Windies.

Garner for me in this. In fact, I rate him higher than Ambrose. Was a ridiculous bowler.

That's a big call

I didn't see him bowl live but the general consensus is that he didn't pick up enough hauls. This is somehow justified by mere 7 five wickets over 58 match career but ofcourse the counter argument is that he had to share his poles with 3 other equally great bowlers. Curtly on the other hand has so many I'm on steroids type spells where he just wins the match on his own.

Also heard that Joel can rival jason krejza in certain departments as well

 

[honestbharani]

If we are talking about the great Windies fast bowling attack of the late 70s-80s, the title of the thread should be "Best of the best"

 

[Gob]

If we are talking about the great Windies fast bowling attack of the late 70s-80s, the title of the thread should be "Best of the best"

Read the opening post, champ

 

[Red]

Garner was a beast.

 

[honestbharani]

Read the opening post, champ

Lol. Fair enough. My bad.

 

[Teja.]

That's a big call

I didn't see him bowl live but the general consensus is that he didn't pick up enough hauls. This is somehow justified by mere 7 five wickets over 58 match career but ofcourse the counter argument is that he had to share his poles with 3 other equally great bowlers. Curtly on the other hand has so many I'm on steroids type spells where he just wins the match on his own.

Also heard that Joel can rival jason krejza in certain departments as well

I'm not sure I agree Garner was better but the best argument for it is that Ambrose's average wickets-per-match takes a sharp dip post-shoulder injury from 1995 onwards in the second half of his career because he became a much more restrained, defensive bowler while still hardly conceding any runs. He could still turn it on when he wanted to and had about as many 5-fers in the second half of his career as his first but was a much less explosive bowler on average and had long stretches of bowling within himself.

Ambrose had a wpm of 5.12 between 90-94 @ 18.7 with a SR of 50 from 1990-94 and a wpm of 3.72 between 1995-00 at an average of 20.8 and SR of 55.

His average was still excellent but the number of wickets he took per match declined drastically post his late 1994 shoulder injury.

Due to this, he ended up with a overall wpm of 4.13 which is at the lower end for ATGs compared to Garner who had a decently higher wpm of 4.46 or Mcgrath with a similar wpm of 4.54.

I think I'd still take Ambrose though but it's very close.