Na, he was never as destructive as 2007 in his entire career. Back to back 10 wicket hauls vs NZ. He was awesome in 2008 as well though.
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Ranking the candidates for best fast bowler ever - ~20 contenders
- Thread starter mr_mister
- Start date
OverratedSanity
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2010 Steyn was the best version. Destroyed that amazing Indian batting lineup home and away.
trundler
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McGrath has excellent peak stats, second only to Murali on raw stats.
McGrath's average was 21 and a half for his entire career except his 1st match.
Dude has 563 wickets from 124 matches.
Wins on all counts.
The bowlers who hit the zone and stayed there - ESPNcricinfo
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2010-11 Steyn was probably the best.
2007-2008 one trick pony Steyn with little accuracy was the most fun though. Pure carnage, whether he was bowling well or not.
trundler
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I'd say the most important things would be doing well in a variety of conditions, a sustained peak (not one or 2 series like Thommo and Johnson), and durability (almost decade long career should do). McGrath and Marshall hit the mark on everything. Anderson loses out on the first for example, Thommo as I said on the 2nd and Tyson on the 3rd.
I feel like people put a lot less emphasis on peak for bowlers than bats. We aren't seeing Waqar, Imran etc near the top of many lists and are getting more consistent guys like Mcgrath and Ambrose who didn't hit the same heights.
Personally I value consistency for bats and bowlers.
Waqar peaked hard for something like 5 years at the start of the 90s. Considering the fact that bowlers have shorter careers, I'm not sure his peak is all that different to Viv or Pontings at about 7 years. And I think his peak was higher than either of theirs. It's not enough for me for any of them, but a lot of people (including you) rate these bats on their peaks.
I ranked Davidson ahead of Wasim, and I'm not Aussie. I don't really have a clue on the answer, but Davidson was the best in the world, while Wasim didn't even get close.
Starfighter
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Hmm, how would you define aesthetics in bowling?
Bijed
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OverratedSanity
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Not even close? In the early/mid-90s, Ambrose, Waqar, Donald and Wasim all were kinda bunched together. Barely anything between them at the time tbh.
trundler
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I do rank batsmen like that but those 2 are just exceptional cases in that they won't on for too long. Don't think Waqar is a similar case as he was meh for a larger part of his career. Akram I can agree with as he took only 14 wickets in his last 12 matches and a buttload before that.
Davidson had his career cut short by injury. Doesn't have longevity on his side. Akram being nowhere close is an exaggeration. I mean, people do generally rate him the greatest left armer. I've seen this on Davidson vs Akram threads here even. Weird.
smash84
The Tiger King
That's just not true.
The second reason is that Davidson didn't have the sort of competition that Wasim had in the 90s. The 90s was arguably the greatest era of fast bowling ever. Amrbose, Walsh, Waqar, McG, Donald, Pollock all playing at the same time.
I rate a bunch of bowlers from the 80s ahead of Wasim. Ambrose, Mcgrath, Warne, Donald ahead in the 90s. Either Pollock or Murali ahead depending on if you are looking at the lengths of their careers or the length of Wasims career. Could go either way on Walsh or Waqar. Close as in he wasn't that far behind most of these guys. Not close as in there were a ton of bowlers who played in the same era who were better than him.
Yes, not fair to compare the levels of competition. But having 10 or so bowlers ahead of you in your era is a lot. If you ignore the deceptivess of his skill, Wasim just did not get results up there with the best.
Anyway, as I said, I don't have a clue on Wasim vs Davidson. Plenty of arguments in favour of Wasim. I think I put Davidson just above Wasim, so nothing in it.
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trundler
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Davidson doesn't have a long enough career to be rated that highly. He's got about 180 wickets. Plus, he isn't regarded that highly by his peers compared to Akram. He simply played in a less competitive era. I don't think he'd be the best in the 90s either. Certainly I'd have Trueman ahead of him.
Could be. It's not a case of me rating Davison highly amoungst the best 25, but rather that I rate Wasim low in this peer group. I don't really hold an opinion either way on any bowler pre 70s other than Trueman, who I rate highly.
weldone
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If we could define aesthetics, beauty, art, love on objective terms..
Starfighter
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More the fact that while I'd define it purely by how a bowlers action looks I could swear I've seen one or two people on here use it in a much broader and more nonsensical sense, like player X having a certain aesthetic because they bowl more bouncers than player Y or something silly.