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CW's Ranking of Pace Bowlers (Tests)

h_hurricane

h_hurricane

International Vice-Captain
The funny part is, Akram wasn't even the best in WPM in his own team. Imran, Waqar and Saqlain were all better than him in that aspect.
 
Pap Finn Keighl

Pap Finn Keighl

International Debutant
h_hurricane said:
The funny part is, Akram wasn't even the best in WPM in his own team. Imran, Waqar and Saqlain were all better than him in that aspect.
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I will take only first 13 years of Akram career for the comparisons. Because that ( or less ) is the career length of most of the bowlers discussing here.
In this 13 years, only one Pak bowler had better WPI than Akram.. Its Waquar the terror.
And if you check the stats properly, Akram had better WPI than Waquar since Waquar's debut.
 
kyear2

kyear2

International Coach
Honestly hard to decide between Steyn and Ambrose.

If it close at the end would make a decision at that point.
 
trundler

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Steyn's superior WPM sealed it for me. To think he was competing with Philader and Morkel for every morsel...
 
h_hurricane

h_hurricane

International Vice-Captain
A lot of debates recently about Ambrose's WPM made me curious as to why it is a little low compared to a few other ATG bowlers. After all, all I remember about him was that he was one of the most destructive bowlers in history. Just did a bit of stats diving and found that against his 2 most frequent adversaries (Eng and Aus), he has a WPM of around 4.8 i.e. 292 wickets in 61 matches @ 19.86 ! Against all other teams combined, he took only 113 wickets in 37 matches (WPM 3.05). He was under bowled against most of these teams except SA, against whom he averaged 18.57, once again awesome.

Even if you remove his record against just India (which was one of the weakest teams in that era), his WPM is around 4.5, very much in inline with other ATG bowlers. I don't really know what made him so ineffective against India(may be the placid pitches of 1997 except the Barbados track), but what is certain is that it didn't hurt his team either.

Given the above, is it fair to hold his low WPM against him ? Very interested in what CWers think on this matter.
 
Slifer

Slifer

International Captain
h_hurricane said:
A lot of debates recently about Ambrose's WPM made me curious as to why it is a little low compared to a few other ATG bowlers. After all, all I remember about him was that he was one of the most destructive bowlers in history. Just did a bit of stats diving and found that against his 2 most frequent adversaries (Eng and Aus), he has a WPM of around 4.8 i.e. 292 wickets in 61 matches @ 19.86 ! Against all other teams combined, he took only 113 wickets in 37 matches (WPM 3.05). He was under bowled against most of these teams except SA, against whom he averaged 18.57, once again awesome.

Even if you remove his record against just India (which was one of the weakest teams in that era), his WPM is around 4.5, very much in inline with other ATG bowlers. I don't really know what made him so ineffective against India(may be the placid pitches of 1997 except the Barbados track), but what is certain is that it didn't hurt his team either.

Given the above, is it fair to hold his low WPM against him ? Very interested in what CWers think on this matter.
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It's complete bs this WPM argument because others like Imran and Akram literally have lower WPM. In Imran's case, it's understandable because in quite a few matches he played primarily as a batsman. My theory is, that his decline in wpm, coincided with the decline with the WI as a whole and especially the batting. There would be numerous tests/series where WI would bat so poorly he'd only have a shot at a teams line up for one innings. Examples 2000 series in England. Ambrose and co had a shot at 79 wickets for the series, where as England's bowlers had a shot at 87 of WIs wickets. In RSA in 1998 Rsa had a shot at 100 wi wickets, Ambrose and co had a shot at 79 south african. In both contests, it wasn't as if the WI bowling didn't hold it's own but they were severely let down by the batting who couldn't put up enough decent scores to defend.

Anyway, Ambrose has the 3rd best average of any bowler with 200 plus wickets, best of any with 400.
 
G

gftw

U19 12th Man
Steyn - 5
Ambrose - 9
Akram - 2
Lillee - 3

The List
1. Malcolm Marshall
2. Glenn Mcgrath
3. Richard Hadlee
4. Curtly Ambrose

The vote for the #5 test pace bowler of all-time begins now.

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