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******Gavin Larsen Appreciation Thread******

G

gavinlarsenno1

Cricket Spectator
This is a thread for all things Gavin Larsen, one of the wiliest exponents of slow bowling that international cricket has ever seen. A prominent member of the New Zealand one day side for many years, his stats speak for themselves. Feel free to add any images, videos etc of the best cricketer New Zealand has ever seen.


Would reccomend this book to anyone, great read.







[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK6eGYXHNdQ[/youtube]

5 maidens

[/youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwYWz5z-Pa0[/youtube]
 
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Kippax

Kippax

Cricketer Of The Year
"Hansie Cronje, the experienced player out there, not quite sure what he's doing playing this stroke".
 
Bahnz

Bahnz

Hall of Fame Member
A quality player and a quality guy. He put up with my rampant fanboyism with great humour during NZ's 1998 tour of Zimbabwe. Always pretended I was him whilst playing schoolyard cricket in the early 90's.
 
Days of Grace

Days of Grace

International Captain
He doesn't have a bad test record either. Was used as a third seamer and even opened the bowling in the West Indies in 1996.

Can't remember exactly how he came to playing test matches and whether he changed his bowling pace or lengths, though. Can someone shed light on this?
 
Migara

Migara

International Coach
There is a massive misconception that Larsen was slow. He was typical fast medium and bowled slower according to the pitch. Most of the time he was 120-125k which was not slow by any means. And that is the exact speed Vaas have been bowling half of his career.

Larsen was a master in identifying the best pace to bowl on a pitch. Once he homed in on the correct pace, with his swing, seam and accuracy it was hardwork for batsmen. thourougly enjoyed the subties of his bowling.
 
GGG

GGG

State Captain
Days of Grace said:
He doesn't have a bad test record either. Was used as a third seamer and even opened the bowling in the West Indies in 1996.

Can't remember exactly how he came to playing test matches and whether he changed his bowling pace or lengths, though. Can someone shed light on this?
Click to expand...
If I remember correctly it was because most of our decient seamers like Cairns, Doull and Nash were often injured. Larsen or Murphy Su'a hmmm.
 
uvelocity

uvelocity

International Coach
Migara said:
There is a massive misconception that Larsen was slow. He was typical fast medium and bowled slower according to the pitch. Most of the time he was 120-125k which was not slow by any means. And that is the exact speed Vaas have been bowling half of his career.

Larsen was a master in identifying the best pace to bowl on a pitch. Once he homed in on the correct pace, with his swing, seam and accuracy it was hardwork for batsmen. thourougly enjoyed the subties of his bowling.
Click to expand...
vaas was slow as well
 
thierry henry

thierry henry

International Coach
Days of Grace said:
He doesn't have a bad test record either. Was used as a third seamer and even opened the bowling in the West Indies in 1996.

Can't remember exactly how he came to playing test matches and whether he changed his bowling pace or lengths, though. Can someone shed light on this?
Click to expand...
I don't think he would've needed to (or been capable of ) genuinely "changing his pace".

As Migara pointed out, Larsen did not bowl as slowly as I think people thought he did. He tends to be associated with Chris Harris but really they were totally different, Harris would often bowl at 100kph or less which must be almost unique for someone who didn't actually bowl spin, Larsen was more your fairly standard 125-130kph medium-pacer. I'd compare him to a more accurate version of Scott Styris with fewer variations. He wasn't a tall man, didn't swing it much and was just slow enough to allow the 'keeper to regularly stand up to him, even though he bowled at a similar speed to some of the frontline quicks we've used.

I guess what was remarkable about Larsen was that he was such an effective specialist bowler (he could bat of course, but was essentially a specialist bowler during his ODI career) despite being only military medium and not really offering much swing or seam. He was simply outstandingly accurate. I'm not sure you could get away with that these days though. Guys like Vaas and Kulasekara come to mind as being similar in speed and stature, but Vaas was obviously a wonderfully skillful bowler and Kula relies on swing, and despite being terrifically accurate still tends to cop it when it's not swinging.
 
S

SteveNZ

International Coach
Bet he's not all that chuffed about his middle name anymore.

Not a bad Test record at all, surprised me.
 
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