Best ever medium pacer?

[Manee]

I never saw him bowl a spell at 150kph in India. A ball or an over maximum and then down to the mid 130s.

 

[Goughy]

IMO, Bedser falls squarely in the medium bracket and McGrath way outside.

Anyway, with the discussion in the Wisden Cricketers thread about Barnes and what type of bowler he was, would be interesting to see if people would fit Appleyard into this 'medium' category.

 

[neville cardus]

Fazal Mahmood has to be one of the best if not the best ever medium pacer.

How so? I offer all of the following -- there are no doubt more -- as better than owd Fazal:

Boyle
Barnes
Spofforth
Tate
Bedser
Walker
Kapil Dev
Botham
Pollock
Vaas

Some of these, of course, were not exclusively medium-paced and, to make matters worse, not Pakistanis either. Nevertheless, they were comfortably better than your offering when they were cultivating the medium-paced stuff.

 

[nightprowler10]

Orright, but that hardly refutes my contention that he is grossly inconsistent. He was often well down into the 130s in that same series.

Agreed, he was actually quite bad in the series by his own standards. Hasn't actually been consistently fast and devastating since the England series in 05 (yes I know I mention that series a lot, and no its not the only series I've ever watched).

 

[Prince EWS]

I do not know how closely you study, and how much credibility you give to, that delightful piece of technology creatively dubbed "Hawkeye", but it shows (with what may be called conclusiveness only if you believe in its fabled accuracy) that a cricket ball, when trundled, loses an enormous amount of pace after hitting the deck.

Quite irrelevant, as true as that is, because the speed guns measure the pace of the ball out of the hand.

 

[neville cardus]

Anyway, with the discussion in the Wisden Cricketers thread about Barnes and what type of bowler he was, would be interesting to see if people would fit Appleyard into this 'medium' category.

I do -- take note, Bhupinder --; in fact, he came as close as anyone to the Barnes style.

 

[neville cardus]

Quite irrelevant, as true as that is, because the speed guns measure the pace of the ball out of the hand.

Blast!

 

[Prince EWS]

If you are going to claim fast-bowling honours for Tait, you really ought to do the same for Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Mitchell Johnson. The last-mentioned often eclipsed Tait's speed during the recent Test series with India.

Yeah, because that's the only time Tait has ever bowled.

 

[nightprowler10]

How so? I offer all of the following -- there are no doubt more -- as better than owd Fazal:

Boyle
Barnes
Spofforth
Tate
Bedser
Walker
Kapil Dev
Botham
Pollock
Vaas

Some of these, of course, were not exclusively medium-paced and, to make matters worse, not Pakistanis either. Nevertheless, they were comfortably better than your offering when they were cultivating the medium-paced stuff.

Not sure I agree with Vaas, Pollock, maybe even Dev being comfortably better than Fazal. Botham was more fast than medium most of his career wasn't he? Though your point stands that Fazal was nowhere near the best ever.

 

[Engle]

Fazal was known as the 'Alec Bedser' of Pakistan and made the most of the few opportunities afforded on the world stage during the initial induction into the Test arena.

Had he played in today's environment, his productivity would've magnified manyfold.

 

[sledger]

I always enjoyed him. He had perhaps the greatest slower delivery in the modern game. How grossly underrated he was.

one of my favourite ever players, as you say, extremely underated, a very clever bowler, and very handy with the bat as well, the exact kind of player england could do with in their one day side really.

 

[Goughy]

When talking about Medium pacers its obvious that they were more common in years gone by.

One other overlooked (though not particularly special) Modern genuine medium pacer was Phil Simmons. This game would illustrate his usefulness and be top of his resume

 

[BhupinderSingh]

How so? I offer all of the following -- there are no doubt more -- as better than owd Fazal:

Boyle
Barnes
Spofforth
Tate
Bedser
Walker
Kapil Dev
Botham
Pollock
Vaas

Some of these, of course, were not exclusively medium-paced and, to make matters worse, not Pakistanis either. Nevertheless, they were comfortably better than your offering when they were cultivating the medium-paced stuff.

Fazal was better than all not bolded.

 

[haroon510]

Asif.. fully fit asif can do wonders.

 

[Prince EWS]

Asif.. fully fit asif can do wonders.

Fully fit, Asif bowls at speeds up to 140km/h, however.

He's definitely medium-fast for mine.

 

[Pup Clarke]

Mohammed Yousuf

 

[andruid]

Thought I would throw in a few New Zealanders

Scott Styris?

 

[morgieb]

Please take note of the forum rules:

Digging Threads - Please do not dig up old threads unless there is something of value being contributed by the dig. Pointless digs may lead to an official warning and excessive digging and spamming of the forum may lead to an instant seven day ban.

Sorry Gelman.

 

[Burgey]

Forgetting Mr Akthar one feels...

Has he signed for the rebel ICL? I heard something to that effect on the radio here this morning.

 

[Burgey]

Have seen both crank it up to 130kph on quite a few occasions. Can't classify that as medium pace.

Take your point, but I've also seen Shane Warne bowl a bouncer - doesn't mean he was a fast medium bowler.

I mean, if we discuss what guys can bowl at on the odd occasion, rather than what they do bowl at most of the time, then every medium pacer will end up being a fast medium bowler, by virtue of a ball or two we've seen them hurl down at 10 or so kph faster than the 99.9% of balls they've bowled over the years.