CW Ranks the Bowlers

[Uppercut]

Sobers on McGrath and his place amongst other fast bowlers

Among the modern day quick bowlers, Glenn McGrath is right there at the top. He can destroy you if you are a front foot player but if you can go back and across to him, he finds it difficult to bowl to you because his radar seems set on a certain length. Play a few shots to him and he can be knocked off his length, as well as making him annoyed. No bowler bowls well when he loses control of his temper because he stops thinking straight.

McGrath is not in the class of the great West indian fast bowlers. He is accurate, has good line and length and moves the ball nicely off the seam but he does not have the pace of Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Wes Hall or the bounce of Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Curtley Ambrose and Courtney walsh. But he is still in his prime and only time will tell how good he is.

However, I don't agree with this talk of him as one of the greatest Australian fast bowlers of all time. I don't believe he is as good as dennis Lillee or as quick as another Aussie of the same era, Jeff Thomson. Thommo was excessively quick and we did not see enough of him internationally, which was a shame. According to Ian Chappell, in the West Indies we missed the best and quickest of him in Test cricket.

It's hard to rate the best ever fast bowlers because there have been so many good ones. As I have said, pace is not the only criterion, as shown by Holding, Ambrose, Trueman and Lillee, all of whom did far more than just run up and bowl as fast as they could. Alan Davidson was a very good bowler too, and another whom I would rate above McGrath. Graham McKenzie wasn't bad, In every era a new face turns up and you kind of forget those who have gone before and how good they were. Its too easy to apply the word great to someone for taking more wickets or scoring more runs than in the past. Those are not the criteria to use because they are playing so much more Test cricket nowadays.​

That's interesting- I'll give the reasons why i rate McGrath so highly.

Firstly, I'm big on effectiveness over style when ranking players. Sobers is dead right when he says McGrath couldn't get the dramatic movement of Wasim or the pace of Lillee. He had no picturesque trademark like Waqar's yorker or Steyn's magic outswinger. To watch, i remember being distinctly underwhelmed when i first saw him. This is supposed to be the best fast bowler in the world? He's not even that fast, and the ball's barely doing anything.

But what counts for me is results. McGrath didn't move the ball dramatically- he moved it enough to take the edge. His pace wasn't anything special, but his bounce made up for it. Most importantly, his accuracy was overwhelming. Almost every ball in the corridor of uncertainty. McGrath took wickets for years, more of them than any other fast bowler. He maintained a fabulous average despite playing in a country filled with fast pitches in a distinctly batsmen-dominated era. If i was ranking bowlers on who i'd least like to face, McGrath wouldn't even make the list, but he'd be guaranteed to get me out every single time. At the end of the day, that's what matters. The proof of his class is in the sheer multitude and quality of wickets he took- Brian Lara fifteen times!

As comparisons go, i wouldn't consider myself educated enough to compare him to the bowlers Sobers listed, but i certainly don't share his views on McGrath's limitations. The guy was absolutely incredible.

 

[weldone]

1. Richard Hadlee
2. Muttiah Muralitharan

 

[silentstriker]

McGrath was so good he shouldn't even be classified as a bowler. There should be a new category for it, something with the word 'deity' in it.

 

[SJS]

That's interesting- I'll give the reasons why i rate McGrath so highly.

Firstly, I'm big on effectiveness over style when ranking players. Sobers is dead right when he says McGrath couldn't get the dramatic movement of Wasim or the pace of Lillee. He had no picturesque trademark like Waqar's yorker or Steyn's magic outswinger. To watch, i remember being distinctly underwhelmed when i first saw him. This is supposed to be the best fast bowler in the world? He's not even that fast, and the ball's barely doing anything.

But what counts for me is results. McGrath didn't move the ball dramatically- he moved it enough to take the edge. His pace wasn't anything special, but his bounce made up for it. Most importantly, his accuracy was overwhelming. Almost every ball in the corridor of uncertainty. McGrath took wickets for years, more of them than any other fast bowler. He maintained a fabulous average despite playing in a country filled with fast pitches in a distinctly batsmen-dominated era. If i was ranking bowlers on who i'd least like to face, McGrath wouldn't even make the list, but he'd be guaranteed to get me out every single time. At the end of the day, that's what matters. The proof of his class is in the sheer multitude and quality of wickets he took- Brian Lara fifteen times!

As comparisons go, i wouldn't consider myself educated enough to compare him to the bowlers Sobers listed, but i certainly don't share his views on McGrath's limitations. The guy was absolutely incredible.

I dont disagree with most of what you say and there is absolutely no doubt that McGrath is one of the game's great bowlers. We dont have to take Sobers word as gospel but its wrong to say he is being stupid because he doesn't just say McGrath is not good enough and thats that. He gos into detail of why he thinks so. Thats why even if one disagrees with these greats who are also great students of the game, it is worthwhile to read and understand what they are saying for even if we still disagree we can learn a lot from their perspective.

I think Grimmet was the greatest leg spinner of all times. Bradman thinks it was O'Rielly. O'Rielly also thinks it was Grimmett. Opinion is divided amongst others who watched and played with or against these two masters. The point is not that Bradman is stupid or those who say Grimmett was better are stupid. If these people explain why they rate one great bowler as better than another great bowler we can learn a lot about the game by just reading and understanding what they are saying. We may still stick to our point of vies (or we may be converted) but if we approach it with an open mind and a respect for a Bradman and a Sobers instead of a false sense of ego, we will be rewarded. Otherwise, it is futile to read or hear anyone or to anyone's opinions because we have made up our minds that the only people who know the game are those who have the same opinion as us (so we are not going to learn from them since we know) and those who have a different opinion are stupid and cant tell us anything anyway.

Many people called Grace the greatest batsman of his time and maybe till Bradman came to the scene. Others rated Trumper higher. Still others rate Ranji above both of them. It really doesn't matter who is correct. In any event we habve no way to assess that today hundred years and more later. We cant even agree on Lara and Sachin why should we worry about Ranji and Trumper. But one thing we should understand that if these are the three names that appear most often along with Hobbs from those times then surely we know that these four were the greatest of those times.

Then we should just read about them and how they played the game, not to find an answer to the 68 million dollar question" as to who was the best but to understand how they played the game, in what way were they different and that is the rewarding bit of reading and talking about cricket not fighting to show which great cricketer is stupid because he knows less about the game than we do.

 

[Athlai]

Hadlee
O'Reilly

 

[nightprowler10]

Wasim
Ambrose

 

[Maximus0723]

Surely, we can't forget the bowlers. Once again, we'll start at #1 and work our way down using a preferential voting system: each voter provides primary (2) and secondary (1) selections from the pool of remaining candidates and the highest-tallied bowler at the end of the two-day voting period gets in. The idea is to focus on the oldest (longer) form of cricket but it's up to you to decide how much importance should be given to performance in test cricket. Discussion is highly encouraged, but please do not start posting articles or pollute the thread with overdone topics.

Let's start the voting for the #1 bowler of all-time.

I think something is wrong here.

 

[Slifer]

Hadlee
Imran

 

[adharcric]

Hadlee - 13
Ambrose - 11
Muralitharan - 8
O'Reilly - 4
Lillee - 3
Warne/Imran/Grimmett/Wasim - 2

 

[BoyBrumby]

1) CEL Ambrose
2) Waqar

 

[Michaelf7777777]

1. Grimmett
2. Hadlee

 

[DaRick]

1) Curtly Ambrose
2) Wasim Akram

 

[adharcric]

Vote for the #5 bowler of all-time

Not the first time my vote would've tied things up.

1. Malcolm Marshall
2. Sydney Barnes
3. Glenn McGrath
4. Curtly Ambrose

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

 

[Fusion]

1. Hadlee
2. Imran

 

[pasag]

DKL
Imran

 

[bagapath]

Tiger o'reilly
Mutthiah Muralitharan

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Murali
Hadlee

 

[SJS]

Grimmett
Orielly

 

[fredfertang]

I didn't really expect either of my batting nominations to come up too early but am genuinely surprised neither of my two bowlers have emerged from the pack....

1. Warne (still grudgingly but less so)
2. Hadlee

 

[SJS]

I didn't really expect either of my batting nominations to come up too early but am genuinely surprised neither of my two bowlers have emerged from the pack....

1. Warne (still grudgingly but less so)
2. Hadlee

I am more surprised in another way. We do not see spinners being favoured at all. A sign of the times ?