Many things can distort speeds - the number of times people say "that was a quick ball" and see it timed at 82mph are numerous.
this further proves my point.
Human beings are not capable of accurately perceiving empirical speed of an object- ie, a car that appears 'fast' or a ball that appears 'fast' can easily have a 10-20mph difference between various people, if asked to quantify the speed of the car/ball.
However, human eye is VERY WELL EQUIPPED to guage relativistic speeds- it can compare very well between two objects and tell which one is faster- and the objects need not run simultaneously for this comparison to occur ( ie,a person can tell which of the cars were faster accurately if two cars did a solo run and the cars had a 4-5mph speed differential or so).
Like I say, if you seriously think Akhtar in prime was much faster than Donald in his prime, that goes against you again, because most evidence suggests otherwise.
i would classify a 5mph difference in speeds consistently as MUCH faster.
Donald has never bowled a delivery recorded at 95mph or above.( i believe according to Eddie whatzizname's compilation, Donalds' two top speeds were in 1993 and 1997 and both were 93-94mph range).
Akhtar bas bowled entire spells at 98+mph.
Sorry, all scientific fact shows quite clearly that anyone saying "x was faster than y" is not worth bothering about because they are quite clearly making judgements they have no tools to make correctly.
It's not like the "this wicket turned\seamed"; "no it didn't!" thing, it's far more objective.
Yesterday 08:35 AM
you need to learn more about the capablities of the human eye before you make that claim. You'll find your views to be modified substantially.
If you wait till the new year's vacation period is over, i will ask my doctor friend to provide me with the names of a few good and indepth books on the topic of optics.