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Speeds pre-1998

rivera213

U19 Vice-Captain
I know this is an old thread but I searched on this board for Frank Tyson video and this came up.

Anyway, interesting article below:

InsideEdge said:
So given that VHS video works reliably at 25 frames per second, we adapted the sample to kilometres per hour and applied it to the many fast bowlers from different eras of whom action footage still exists.
From the movies we obtained, both Fred Trueman and Frank Tyson were found to bowl at 10 frames, putting them as high at 159.12km/h with an average of 152.63. While Thommo and Ray Lindwall were clocked at 11 frames putting their peaks in the low 150's with an average of 139. Keith Miller and Wes Hall were throwing them down in 12 dazzling frames at an average of 127.3 but the variant between venom was high with each."
Though anyone who has seen footage (or live) both Trueman and Thomson, there's no doubt Thommo was MUCH faster.

If there was some distance between Tyson and Trueman then I'd consider it being correct but as far as speed Tyson was faster than Trueman who in turn was just faster than Statham.

I also doubt (from the general concensus of the physical elements of swing) that Trueman averaged more than 88mph since the ball tends not to swing "regularly" as a general rule when bowled faster than that.

The optimum pace for "regular" swing I'd estimate around 82-85mph, for reverse 88+ (Waqar, Wasim, Simon Jones all reversed it when they bowled faster than 88mph).

I'd say Trueman averaged around 135-138kph at the begin of his career.


Well, I'd expect nothing more from the 'esteemed' writers at Inside Edge and I know it was only meant to be an ad hoc measurement but the lack of science in the measurements they took makes the whole thing pretty funny. For one, the 25 frames-per-second assumption; whilst correct for VHS, did they also take into account the frame-rate of the original footage before transfer? Doubt it and that would make a HUGE difference. Plus there's parallax error to be taken into account, etc
True dat.

The most flawed measurement of speed I've seen to date.
 

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
Well, I'd expect nothing more from the 'esteemed' writers at Inside Edge and I know it was only meant to be an ad hoc measurement but the lack of science in the measurements they took makes the whole thing pretty funny. For one, the 25 frames-per-second assumption; whilst correct for VHS, did they also take into account the frame-rate of the original footage before transfer? Doubt it and that would make a HUGE difference. Plus there's parallax error to be taken into account, etc.

The fact they perform their calculations to two SF is pretty funny; there's no way their measurements were accurate enough to justify that. As SS said, a range and associated CI would be more scientifically honest than what they did however, I realise this wasn't meant to be a truly defensible addition to the literature.
Haa, who to believe. But yea i guess the theory has more question than answers - to be relied on.

I guess the fascination with how fast these bowlers where will live on, it would be great if some math wizz can find a way to work it out though...
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
I think bowlers nowadays bowl allot faster, IMO and there is a greater variety of bowlers that can bowl fast. Things just don't add up, footwear wouldn't of been first-class in previous generations, which would've affected bowlers runups and momemtum. Cricket is taken allot more seriously nowadays and training is far more indept. If bowlers bowled as fast as people make out, without helmets and on the pitches they played on then 90% of batsman would've been killed. I'm sorry, it's just not possible - It's just an alibi that just doesn't add up.
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
Of course it doesnt add up .You just made it up
Ok, go back to your fantasy land and believe everything that you hear. Ever heard of the one where a little man about 5'7" hit the ball over the Lords pavillion in 1899? Great and believable story.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Ok, go back to your fantasy land and believe everything that you hear. Ever heard of the one where a little man about 5'7" hit the ball over the Lords pavillion in 1899? Great and believable story.
Yeah I forgot. Old people were ****
 

bagapath

International Captain
i dont think too many things in cricket would have changed despite the decades that have passed.

the quick batsmen average a 60+ strike rate (trumper, richards, pietersen). there is always one or two mad men who scored faster (jessop, kapil, gilchrist) at 75+ SR. the slow and steady batsmen (hobbs, gavaskar, dravid) scored at 40 runs per 100 balls faced.

great fast bowlers averaged 4 wickets a test conceding around 20 runs (spofforth, mashall, mcgrath). spinners needed more deliveries to get their wickets hence averaged a little more (faulkner, oreilly, warne).

despite some trends being reflective of specific eras (in the early years batsmen and bowlers averaged less because of the nature of wickets, the playing style of the 50s and 60s was slower and hence the bowling SR was higher, post mid-90s more batsmen average more than 50 due to batting friendly wickets) a player would be equally successful or medicore or bad, IMO, and have a similar impact on the game in every era as his own.

similarly, bowling speeds, i believe, would not be too different in the video recorded eras from the earlier ones. express fast bowlers would frequently hit 150km averaging in the 140s. fast bowlers would average in 130s and reaching 140s at times. the fast medium bowlers (and old fast bowlers) would usually bowl in the 120s and hit 130s when they push themselves. spofforth, larwood, tyson, thommo, marshall, akhthar and lee could all be expected to bowl at similar pace at their peaks.
 
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Trumpers_Ghost

U19 Cricketer
Does anyone know just how bowling speed is measured? I can think of a few different methods and don't know which one is actually used.

possibilities:

- distance travelled / time taken. this would favour shorter bowlers bowling a full trajectory over tall bowlers bowling short (with the ball travelling at the same velocity the first would arrive sooner)

- velocity as the ball passes crease ( this would be difficult to judge if the ball was hit)

- velocity as the ball passes mid point on pitch (takes slow pitches out of the equation)

- average velocity

- peak velocity (would be almost as soon as it left the hand, perhaps not a good pointer for 22 yards)

So which of these is actually used (or is it something else altogether) ???

And while I'm on the subject of semantics concerning bowling speed, I believe that the statisticians use the wrong method for calculating average speed for bowlers. The current practice is to use a mean, whereby slower balls pull down the average to a speed that the bowler never bowls. A better stat would be a modal calculation (most common speed bowled) or an adjusted mean that removed the fastest and slowest balls from each over (although bowling 2 slower balls stuffs this up as well). I just figure the relevance of the average speed is to get an idea of the speed of the stock ball, or the speed that the bowler is likely to bowl at. thoughts?

cheers
 

rivera213

U19 Vice-Captain
(...snip..) similarly, bowling speeds, i believe, would not be too different in the video recorded eras from the earlier ones. express fast bowlers would frequently hit 150km averaging in the 140s. fast bowlers would average in 130s and reaching 140s at times. the fast medium bowlers (and old fast bowlers) would usually bowl in the 120s and hit 130s when they push themselves. spofforth, larwood, tyson, thommo, marshall, akhthar and lee could all be expected to bowl at similar pace at their peaks.
Bowling speed is determined on:

* How rhythmical an action is.
* How much of your body is lined up and moving in the same (forward) direction.
* How much of your body is put into your action and therefore how much of your weight is behind the delivery.

and (depending on the type of action)

* How fast you are through your delivery.

Of course, like life, there are exceptions to the rule.

I'm confident that Thomson is the fastest bowler ever in terms of both fastest single delivery and average speed (slightly above Shoaib), not because people back in the day couldn't bowl fast, but because his action is the best for bowling superhuman fast. I am able to get the ball through much faster with a slingy action than with a "regular" action and I suck.

Thomson followed the 3 rules 99.99999%, plus he got through his action very quickly and was powerful to boot.

AFAIK, no-one had that type of action before Thomson (well, no test bowler).

There are exceptions. Shaun Tait, Shoaib Akhtar & Brett Lee are/were ridiculously fast at peak and didn't have Thomson's action. But Shoaib has a deformity, Tait muscles the ball through (and is a huge man) and Brett Lee absolutely put everything he had into the deliveries which clocked 150kph+ (93mph+). Lee wasn't able to sustain that pace for very long, Shoaib and Tait average(d) at peak (Shoaib 1999-2003) around 148-150kph I believe with some monster deliveries.



Does anyone know just how bowling speed is measured? I can think of a few different methods and don't know which one is actually used.

possibilities:

- distance travelled / time taken. this would favour shorter bowlers bowling a full trajectory over tall bowlers bowling short (with the ball travelling at the same velocity the first would arrive sooner)

- velocity as the ball passes crease ( this would be difficult to judge if the ball was hit)

- velocity as the ball passes mid point on pitch (takes slow pitches out of the equation)

- average velocity

- peak velocity (would be almost as soon as it left the hand, perhaps not a good pointer for 22 yards)

So which of these is actually used (or is it something else altogether) ???

And while I'm on the subject of semantics concerning bowling speed, I believe that the statisticians use the wrong method for calculating average speed for bowlers. The current practice is to use a mean, whereby slower balls pull down the average to a speed that the bowler never bowls. A better stat would be a modal calculation (most common speed bowled) or an adjusted mean that removed the fastest and slowest balls from each over (although bowling 2 slower balls stuffs this up as well). I just figure the relevance of the average speed is to get an idea of the speed of the stock ball, or the speed that the bowler is likely to bowl at. thoughts?

cheers
Though I LOATHE Wikipedia with a passion (stemming back to some false info put on there in regards to music theory), this is correct- Radar gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 misconception is that a delivery time AT the batsman's end would result in the speed from the hand being faster. This isn't true because speed guns take the fastest possible speed (which is always out of the hand) so whether it is timed from 50m away, quality speed guns still take the fastest speed.

Therefore Jeff Thomson's 2 x 160kmph+ were out of the hand. :)

With some models of speed guns, you have to add on a percentage based on the angle away from where you're clocking, but that's minimal and professionals do that anyway.

I agree on the part of average speed, when I estimate how fast on average I think a bowler bowled, it's based on their fast balls only.

Also, bowlers in the 70's & 80's (even til the mid 90's) weren't bowling as many slower balls as they are today so I don't think it'd matter too much.

Swing bowlers like Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram purposely bowled way below peak so the ball could swing (regular swing I mean- ca 85mph). Waqar was capable of speeds up to 95-96mph and probably bowled up to that pace early in his career (before he developed into the class swing bowler) and Wasim was probably capable of around 93-94mph and like Waqar bowled faster before he mastered his art.

It'd be interesting to see how fast both bowled their reverse swing deliveries since reverse swing tends to happen post-88mph.
 
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King Pietersen

International Captain
If bowlers bowled as fast as people make out, without helmets and on the pitches they played on then 90% of batsman would've been killed. I'm sorry, it's just not possible - It's just an alibi that just doesn't add up.
If batsmen in the past played the short ball like they do nowadays, then you'd be right, but when batsmen didn't have all the protection that they do now, they had to watch the ball far more closely, and have a far better technique against the short ball. You see so many players nowadays turning their backs on a short ball, turning their heads and just not watching the ball the whole way down, and you're right, they'd have been clattered if facing a Thomson, Holding, Lillee, Tyson etc etc, but in the years gone by, the large majority played the short ball far better than players of the current era.
 

Trumpers_Ghost

U19 Cricketer
Bowling speed is determined on:

* How rhythmical an action is.
* How much of your body is lined up and moving in the same (forward) direction.
* How much of your body is put into your action and therefore how much of your weight is behind the delivery.

and (depending on the type of action)

* How fast you are through your delivery.
Your forgetting 2 of the most important factors, which are
* The upper body strength of the bowler, and
* The leg speed of the bowler

these are pre-requistes for the super fast bowler
It then becomes a matter of having the rythmical action and minimising the loss of of momentum at point of delivery (although strangely Tait seems to be able to bowl fast despite not conforming to this last point).
 

rivera213

U19 Vice-Captain
Your forgetting 2 of the most important factors, which are
* The upper body strength of the bowler, and
* The leg speed of the bowler

these are pre-requistes for the super fast bowler
It then becomes a matter of having the rythmical action and minimising the loss of of momentum at point of delivery (although strangely Tait seems to be able to bowl fast despite not conforming to this last point).
You only need to be as strong as the sport requires you to be. Needless to say you have to be fit but I'm talking about pro level not club or anything.

Leg speed matters with some actions, but Holding wasn't Usain Bolt speed by any means and still hit 90mph+.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Leg speed matters with some actions, but Holding wasn't Usain Bolt speed by any means and still hit 90mph+.
Not a great example. Holding was a fine runner and a very good 400m runner. One of the better sprinters to bowl fast.

Someone like Trueman was more of the big buttocks & broad shoulder brigade than sprinter.
 
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rivera213

U19 Vice-Captain
Not a great example. Holding was a fine runner and a very good 400m runner. One of the better sprinters to bowl fast.

Someone like Trueman was more of the big buttocks & broad shoulder brigade than sprinter.
* Which is why I used Holding as an example.

The 400m isn't about speed, it's more about stamina and maintaining a particular speed.

Holding didn't sprint-in during his action, he was barely at a canter. If leg speed was so important, it'd manifest itself in his (of all people's) action.

Instead, his action is the prime example of rhythm, regardless of whether he was a great runner, his speed wasn't as a result of fast leg movement (or upper body strength).
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
The "people are getting better at sports" argument can be quite misleading - its not surprising that we've not seen much, if any, increase in the very top speeds attained by players, especially since, say, WWII.

Sports where records get reduced drastically tend to be sports that either haven't been established for very long, and in which it is still possible to develop previously unknown techniques that improve upon the norm, or else haven't been treated professionally for very long, eg. women's marathon prior to its inclusion in the Olympics.

In established sports, any improvements are going to be miniscule and incremental. We still see records being broken, but that's in part because of the increasing accuracy of time keeping - it's now possible to judge that someone has shaved 3/100s of a second of the old mark for the 1500m run. In the 100ms, the current world record is approx. 4% faster than what Jesse Owens ran - in old-fashioned shoes, with no starters blocks, on a cinder track.

Fast bowling is like that IMO. The basic technique has been established for a century. There have been people who've been bowling for a living for decades. And we now find that exceptional quick bowlers have unusual Thommo/Tait style actions, or actions that at their most extreme are sometimes questionable like Lee and Akhtar.

What improvements in nutrition, recovery, and injury management have probably done is not improve the very fastest bowlers performance, but reduced the variability between the average speeds of top quicks. Its probably easier with modern coaching, nutrition, etc etc for a bowler with a decent amount of talent to consistently bowl 130+, and in the last 20 years we probably have many more bowlers hitting 140+ than used to be the case. But the exceptional bowlers haven't changed as much.

And this partially answers the question about where have the super-quicks gone. They're still here IMO, but they don't stand out as much anymore because the average internationally is now probably 130+, rather than 120+. Its like Mt Everest being less obvious in the Himilayas (sp? no coffee yet today) than it would be in the Sahara.
Missed this thread first time round, great read this post
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Not a great example. Holding was a fine runner and a very good 400m runner. One of the better sprinters to bowl fast.

Someone like Trueman was more of the big buttocks & broad shoulder brigade than sprinter.
Think Craig White was the ultimate "fast bowler as ambler". Just gently trotted in and somehow got it down the other end at over 90mph. Amazing arm speed.
 

oitoitoi

State Vice-Captain
I have to say I'm kind of with the Atul Sharma school of thought, a scientific approach to athleticism still hasn't really entered cricket in the way it is in say the NFL or Baseball. Most fast bowlers still don't really understand what is required to bowl fast, they just try and improve on what they've grown up doing. Until benchmarks are found where we know what is required from each muscle group to bowl 90+ with certain types of action I don't think we'll see 90 become the new 85.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Missed this thread first time round, great read this post
Yeah good post. I read an article a while ago based on the idea that if people are bigger, faster, stronger, more explosive, better trained, better nutrition, better chemicals and better equipment then why have shot put performances hardly changed in 30 years?

Was a good read. Not everything has improved as much as some would like to think.
 

rivera213

U19 Vice-Captain
I have to say I'm kind of with the Atul Sharma school of thought, a scientific approach to athleticism still hasn't really entered cricket in the way it is in say the NFL or Baseball. Most fast bowlers still don't really understand what is required to bowl fast, they just try and improve on what they've grown up doing. Until benchmarks are found where we know what is required from each muscle group to bowl 90+ with certain types of action I don't think we'll see 90 become the new 85.
"Athletic" in the NFL and MLB = Steroids. :laugh:

But yeah I know what you mean. Guys in the 80's and earlier only really did repetitive gym work as opposed to lifting weights a la Shaun Tait.

Being strong in itself doesn't equal pace, though of course guys like Cotter & Tait owe a lot of their pace to imense upper body strength.

There's no substitute for an action which follow the 3 rules but once you have that, then some gym work and athletic training could very well help- if only so you can bowl at "full" speed for longer during a period.

I certainly think the Trueman era suffered from lack of fitness.

Holding, Thomson, Lillee, Roberts, Marshall got fit and stayed fit from bowling and working on stamina.
 

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