One too many "ways" there buddy. Did you even see Bishop bowl pre-injury? Bishop swung the ball both ways, had pace, bounce leg/off cutters and a nasty bouncer. Bishop lacked nothing except for maybe reverse swing and took pitches out of the equation. While playing amongst Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh and Patterson, Bishop took his 1st 100 wkts in 20 tests. Fwiw, I never said Bumrah wasn't more skilled but he wasn't head and shoulders (skill-wise) above pre-injury Ian Bishop. Gthoh with that....
He was challenging Waqar for the fastest in the world while swinging the ball both ways. Briefly almost made Amby an after though,
He did. In the late 80s while growing up in the Caribbean, everybody I knew rated Ian over Curtly when both broke into the WI team. And with good reason.
Those three together for a decade would have been phenomenal to watch and would have turned cricket on its head. No we still wouldn't have been better than Australia, but would have been a hell of a fight
If you believe that you believe in the Easter bunny.
Even crazier how much they've struggled to develop any since, especially any who were actually useful away from home. Merv Dillon was under-rated in such a bat-dominated era, but aside from that they've had a couple of injury-plagued flashes in the pan, a handful of blokes who were good at home but awful away, and about 35 flops.
He's probably still a better batsman now than some of the specialists in the squad to Australia.
It was probably just an accident of history. It was/is a pretty small population base in an under resourced region.
Also had Croft, Tony Gray (who could've been another very good one), the scary pace of Patterson, and the allround excellence of Franklyn Stephenson who is one of the best never to play a test.
And not to mention Sylvester Clarke, Wayne Daniel, Winston Davis and even probably Winston Benjamin; who all would had played many more Tests had they belonged to any other team.
I have seem Bishop ball and he was nothing you described. He was up there scarily quick, swing, seam, cutters were there when the pitch suited them. Bumrah can do all of them on pitches that don't even support. Lack of reverse swing and slower balls, and killer yorkers are a MASSIVE lack of skills. Once Bishop lost his pace, he became ordinary, because he did not have any other skills that are needed to beat batsman at top level. Let Bumrah bowl at 130k and he will still work batsmen out because he has lot more skills.
You watched highlights, us from the WI watched him live ball by ball. Bishop could and did bowl yorkers and slower balls etc. Just say you don't what the hell you're talking about and move on. Also, he didnt become ordinary because he lost pace, he became less effective because he was freaking injured and I'm constant pain.
I have watched few ball to ball coverages where he played. No where close to skilled as Bumrah. Even guys like Asif are way more skilled than Bishop.
Not sure which would have be funnier in that list, Woakes or Anderson....