Cricket's 10 Fastest Bowlers - Who are they?

[C_C]

Meh.
I dont think larwood was that fast.
Voce and Nissar were reputedly faster and so were Constantine...but what is 'fast' ? i dunno from that era.... could be high 80s, could be low 90s....Flintoff comes close but in terms of consistent pace, i think the abovementioned ones edge him.

 

[archie mac]

Kortright
Jones
Richardson
Larwood
Tyson
Thomson
Marshall
Shoaib
Holding
Lee

Not in order.

 

[age_master]

apparently people who saw him reakon Thompson was the quickest in recent history

 

[archie mac]

apparently people who saw him reakon Thompson was the quickest in recent history

He was scary, and had a slinging action, which gave him steep bounce from just short of a length. The fastest I have seen.

 

[Tim]

Im not convinced Bond was bowling 150 k's yesterday but he was definately bowling in the mid 140's, there's no doubt about that.

If he keeps progressing over the next few months, I have no doubt that he'll be back bowling at 150 k's which will be great to see.

 

[Neil Pickup]

I saw him manage 95+ in the ODIs last summer, so that doesn't seem ridiculous.

How quick's Malinga?

 

[Kris]

Mitchell Johnson anyone?

If he can ever get on the park and get a full season or two under his belt, he'll be beauty. But I suspect his injuries over the past few years would have slowed him down. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

I saw him manage 95+ in the ODIs last summer, so that doesn't seem ridiculous.

How quick's Malinga?

Gillespie of 12 months ago sort of pace. Faster balls are low to mid 140s, so like high 80s peaking at 90 or so, average maybe 138-139, which is about 86-87.

The fastest are definately Lee and Akhtar, who at top speed both push up on average into the 95-100 (150-160) range, then you've got guys like Bond, Edwards, Hayward who push 95 as well, but only on their quickest deliveries, and then Harmison, Flintoff, Sami, Lawson, Best etc who are about 90 (145) or a little above at top pace.

We can't really say about older bowlers of course, but obviously guys like Tyson, Gilchrist, Thomson and Waqar were all in the express bracket, and then guys like Holding, Lillee, Imran, Proctor, Larwood etc were probably a bit slower but still pretty damn quick.

Not too sure about the quickest bowlers coming through the ranks now, but Australia has Tait, Johnson and Bird who are all frightfully quick by all reports (only seen Tait extensively myself), although Johnson has injury troubles and Bird apparently chucks it and is having his action reworked. I've heard about someone (Broad, I think?) coming through in England who is very quick too. Anyone know of any others?

 

[GermanShepherd]

Gillespie of 12 months ago sort of pace. Faster balls are low to mid 140s, so like high 80s peaking at 90 or so, average maybe 138-139, which is about 86-87.

The fastest are definately Lee and Akhtar, who at top speed both push up on average into the 95-100 (150-160) range, then you've got guys like Bond, Edwards, Hayward who push 95 as well, but only on their quickest deliveries, and then Harmison, Flintoff, Sami, Lawson, Best etc who are about 90 (145) or a little above at top pace.

We can't really say about older bowlers of course, but obviously guys like Tyson, Gilchrist, Thomson and Waqar were all in the express bracket, and then guys like Holding, Lillee, Imran, Proctor, Larwood etc were probably a bit slower but still pretty damn quick.

Not too sure about the quickest bowlers coming through the ranks now, but Australia has Tait, Johnson and Bird who are all frightfully quick by all reports (only seen Tait extensively myself), although Johnson has injury troubles and Bird apparently chucks it and is having his action reworked. I've heard about someone (Broad, I think?) coming through in England who is very quick too. Anyone know of any others?

Jason Gillespie was very, very pacy around 1996-1997 he would have been in the 145-150 km'hr range regularly.
I remember watching him bowl in the Titan cup as well that very quick spell in SOuth AFrica in early 1997.

 

[Dasa]

I saw him manage 95+ in the ODIs last summer, so that doesn't seem ridiculous.

How quick's Malinga?

Malinga's not that quick - around high 130s to low 140s at best.

 

[greg]

Flintoff was touching 95 mph in the second innings at Edgbaston.

 

[King_Ponting]

Mitchell Johnson anyone?

Yeh bout harmisons pace.

 

[Top_Cat]

Flintoff was touching 95 mph in the second innings at Edgbaston.

I have my doubts about the speed cameras as a whole in the Test and ODI's series so far. I've seen lightning quick-bouncers get clocked below 120km/h and guys like Hoggard get clocked at 150km/h+ on occasion (obviously anomalies). So I'm wondering how many of Flintoff's quicker ones are genuinely quick and which ones are anomalies.

CONSISTENTLY, he was hitting 90 on a few occasions. Either way, that's fast enough to hurt. A lot. Plus his bounce and seam movement would make him tough to face if he was bowling 10km/h slower even.

 

[SpeedKing]

I have my doubts about the speed cameras as a whole in the Test and ODI's series so far. I've seen lightning quick-bouncers get clocked below 120km/h and guys like Hoggard get clocked at 150km/h+ on occasion (obviously anomalies). So I'm wondering how many of Flintoff's quicker ones are genuinely quick and which ones are anomalies.

CONSISTENTLY, he was hitting 90 on a few occasions. Either way, that's fast enough to hurt. A lot. Plus his bounce and seam movement would make him tough to face if he was bowling 10km/h slower even.

Hoggard............150ks. thats a joke. he can barely get over 83mph/133kph. I am sorry mate, you must have seen it wrong. And Flintoff wasn't just hitting 90 on a few occassions, it was more towards more often than not. Brett Lee said that flintoff was the quickest bowler he has ever faced and thats something because, their are a long list of quicks who have tried to give Lee some of his own medicine and if he thinks Freddie is the quickest he's faced, i will believe it.

 

[Monty]

Holly colvin

 

[greg]

Channel 4 did an interesting little "Analyst" piece claiming to demonstrate how much less pace Flintoff's balls lost after pitching than Harmison's. In their example he was losing some 10% less, I think.

 

[Monty]

interesting i saw that on sbs it makes you think dont it

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Many batsman consider Wayne Daniel to be the fastest they ever faced. For some reason Clive LLoyd didn't rate him above Croft, Garner, and others who were not in his league and his Test career was stifled.

 

[Isolator]

Malinga looks a lot quicker than he actually is... and he also seems to hurry batsmen a lot more than another bowler of his pace would. I suppose it's his action.

 

[aussie]

Just wondering which names come up along with the obvious?

This can be in domestic and international cricket.

A few to get started:

Akhtar
Lee
Harmison
Flintoff
Bond (shamefully never seen him bowl to be honest)?
Sami

Think I've got the obvious ones.. who else? Would someone like Simon Jones make the list?

add:

Edwards
Best
Lawson
Tait (from what i saw today at OT he looks faster than Harmison)
Johnson (from what the aussies here have said about him)

Though the Simon Jones of 3 years ago easily made the top 10....