I am not sure this is such a great point.
Fair comment/question. I guess it boils down to the era (and my age). Trueman seems to have stood out in terms of pace and there were few who were his equal at the time. Perhaps should have said he was more outstanding at the time than Wasim who had many quality quicks operating during his era.
Sorry if you've addressed this before.
Ranking is one thing but in terms of peer opinion Wasim was always up there. Even during Waqars peak virtually everyone considered Wasim the better bowler. If you ask batamen of the 90s era, it is either Wasim or Ambrose who gets named as the best pacer they faced (mostly Wasim though).
Certainly. I remember the famous tied Test in Brisbane in 60/61. I also saw Sobers making 254 in the RoW v Australia in 1972 at the MCG. Don Bradman described the knock as "probably the greatest exhibition of batting ever seen in Australia".
It is no shame to be number two to Mcgrath and Ambrose who are both in the first ATG team or close to it. Akram was a truly awesome bowler and being the best left arm pacer of all time should also count for something.
The only thing that Akram suffers from is noticeably less impressive stats compared to Ambrose and McGrath. If his stats were in the same range as theirs, his choice as best bowler of the era would be near unanimous on this forum I think based on his slightly higher peer rating. I think Akram and Lillee and even Trueman justify places in the top 10 pacers ever based largely on their high peer rating.
Lindwall > Trueman, so no
I recall Wasim was seen as better. Especially after his big take off in Australia in 1990, he was rated the next big thing in cricket. And then the 92 World Cup cemented that reputation. Waqar only really captured higher attention after the 1992 England tour though he had built up a reputation in county cricket by then.
Based on eye test it would have surprised no one if Akram averaged 18 picking 5 wickets a match. But he didn't and someone like McGrath with seemingly less exciting bowling style did better (don't @ me on McGrath, you will be preaching to the choir). So you gotta ask what did Akram fail to do. We know cricket is a game of small margins. Akram despite all the tools was giving impression of being hardest to face more than actually getting players out (relative to other greats). It also shows up in his disproportionately large share of tail wickets: 35% wickets of batsmen playing at 8-11. Incidentally, Trueman with 31.6% is middling. For reference McGrath took only 25.2% tail wickets. http://howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Bowling/BowlingAggregates.asp
Even at an absolute, his highest rating was a (relatively) ordinary 830 points. See who all are ahead of him: http://www.relianceiccrankings.com/alltime/test/bowling/
I dont really understand why people put this much stock in the ICC rataing points when we dont even know what methodology they use. Could be whacky nonsense for all we know.
Checks out mostly with what is happening at any given point. E.g. Smith and Imran have highest batting and bowling peaks according to ICC ratings since 1950, completely consistent with their form. I don't see much wrong tbh.
So you have Southee, Swann, Yasir Shah, Ajmal, Ntini and a whole lot of other average to good players above him in the rankings. Do you agree with that?
