All Time Greatest Fast Bowler Ever

Who is the greatest fast bowler of all time?

  • Ian Botham (ENG)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bob Willis (ENG)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Andrew Flintoff (ENG)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Kapil Dev (IND)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Shoaib Akhtar (PAK)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Imran Khan (PAK)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Chaminda Vass (SL)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Joel Garner (WI)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    93

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I suppose the only knock on him is that he could be more economical (3.24 isn't bad, but it's not great, either), but his near-GOAT strike rate and the fact that he plays in such a batting-dominant era cancels that out. Doing it all at the pace he does while standing just 5'11" deserves some credit, too.

I think part of the reason Steyn doesn't get as much praise as he should is that he's pretty mechanical and almost boringly consistently good, and isn't really known to be much of a character, either. As I said earlier in the thread RE: Flintoff, charisma and big moments can serve to overrate a bowler, while just being the same old consistent wicket-taker without much fuss probably isn't as "sexy" to most.
Vernon Philander at the other end gets his wickets at 22 with a strike rate of 48.

Sure he's stealing wickets from Steyn, and building pressure at the other end, but two guys with such ridiculous records at the same time suggests friendly pitches/maybe the batting isn't as good as everyone says.
 
The issue with Strike Rate is it changes along with things like batting run rate.

Here you can see how strike rate has changed along per decade. As scoring has got faster (particular in the last 20+ years with the influence of big bats, T20s etc), strike rate has also improved.

This table shows how strike rates (bold in the table below) in the 2010s are almost 10 balls-per-wicket less than the 1970s - but the average runs per wicket in the 1970s is less. So in the 2010s, the wickets are falling faster, but they cost more runs. What would you rather have - a bowler who gets wickets quickly, or a bowler who gets wickets cheaply? Remember, we have had the discussion that batting in the 2010s has never been easier - yet bowlers are taking wickets at a faster rate than any time since WW1. You can't cherrypick stats - you have to understand them and how they have changed over time - as the game has also changed.

Here's the query, if anyone wants to play with it:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...ing_strike_rate;template=results;type=bowling

Overall figures
Decade Players Mat Inns Balls Runs Wkts BBI BBM Ave Econ SR 5 10
1870s 37 3 59 4758 1837 101 7/55 13/110 18.18 2.31 47.1 6 1
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1880s 112 29 500 48342 17618 915 8/11 15/28 19.25 2.18 52.8 58 13
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1900s 103 41 774 73940 33133 1333 8/31 15/99 24.85 2.68 55.4 87 13
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1910s 98 29 585 51945 24591 914 9/103 17/159 26.90 2.84 56.8 53 11
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1890s 149 32 571 62052 26149 1038 9/28 15/45 25.19 2.52 59.7 64 15
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2010s 400 247 4935 495098 257291 7610 9/127 14/184 33.80 3.11 65.0 314 38
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2000s 586 464 9038 916337 472755 13863 9/51 15/217 34.10 3.09 66.0 522 79
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1990s 500 347 6556 700101 321529 10204 10/74 16/220 31.51 2.75 68.6 425 55
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1980s 382 266 4805 528477 239888 7474 9/52 16/136 32.09 2.72 70.7 346 55
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1930s 294 89 1679 189322 81544 2536 8/43 15/104 32.15 2.58 74.6 114 23
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1970s 321 198 3974 446566 188130 5896 9/86 16/137 31.90 2.52 75.7 228 31
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1950s 351 164 3095 374366 137508 4818 10/53 19/90 28.54 2.20 77.7 233 33
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1920s 172 51 948 114614 48620 1462 9/121 13/236 33.25 2.54 78.3 68 11
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1960s 347 186 3892 448076 178064 5546 8/38 12/101 32.10 2.38 80.7 216 23
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1940s 180 45 909 107012 44926 1271 7/38 11/31 35.34 2.51 84.1 58 6
 

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Vernon Philander at the other end gets his wickets at 22 with a strike rate of 48.

Sure he's stealing wickets from Steyn, and building pressure at the other end, but two guys with such ridiculous records at the same time suggests friendly pitches/maybe the batting isn't as good as everyone says.

Or it could just be that they are, you know, great bowlers...
 
I suppose the only knock on him is that he could be more economical (3.24 isn't bad, but it's not great, either), but his near-GOAT strike rate and the fact that he plays in such a batting-dominant era cancels that out. Doing it all at the pace he does while standing just 5'11" deserves some credit, too.

I think part of the reason Steyn doesn't get as much praise as he should is that he's pretty mechanical and almost boringly consistently good, and isn't really known to be much of a character, either. As I said earlier in the thread RE: Flintoff, charisma and big moments can serve to overrate a bowler, while just being the same old consistent wicket-taker without much fuss probably isn't as "sexy" to most.

This number has to be looked at in the context of the modern era. It is unquestionably the fastest scoring era in test history, and all economy rates will be higher. What matters is his rate compared to the average economy rate for all bowlers across test cricket during his career.

It's a very similar situation in baseball, where pitchers' ERA values are judged against their contemporaries.


EDIT: I've just seen Wallaby's excellent post.

The mean economy rate in the 2010's is 3.11, compared with 2.52 in the 1970's.
 
Vernon Philander at the other end gets his wickets at 22 with a strike rate of 48.

Sure he's stealing wickets from Steyn, and building pressure at the other end, but two guys with such ridiculous records at the same time suggests friendly pitches/maybe the batting isn't as good as everyone says.

The batting is not that good, modern batsman for the vast majority have so many flaws it's not funny. It's just that they play on roads that they look like good players.
The fact that a few very exceptional bowlers have great averages is testament to that.
At least 10 knocked off all Batsmans average these days would be about their true worth as players.
 
Or it could just be that they are, you know, great bowlers...
No doubt, they are great bowlers. Steyn in the conversation for GOAT.

As others have said though, when you have two bowlers both in the top 7 strike rates of all time, playing for the same team on the same pitches you have to start investigating some of the reasons for that if you want to use strike rates as an "all time" comparison.
 
Too many variables to be definite about it, but the best that I have seen were

Lillee
Marshall
Hadlee
Holding
Akram
Kapil Dev

I was lucky to be watching cricket in the 70s and 80s. All sides in world cricket had good patches through that era.
 
The point is, unless all these bowlers played in the same era, in the same conditions, against the same batsmen on the same pitches, we'll never know, so the exercise is both interesting yet pointless.

The best two quicks I've seen (IMHO) are Dennis Lillee and Wasim Akram, but dare I suggest they are the best ever when I never saw Wes Hall at his best, or the likes of Brian Statham, Freddie Trueman, Ray Lindwall or Harold Larwood?

When I was a boy, old stagers of the time used to talk up FS Barnes as the best ever, even though he hadn't played Test cricket for over 50 years. Who's to say who was the best? Certainly not me.
 
Too many variables to be definite about it, but the best that I have seen were

Lillee
Marshall
Hadlee
Holding
Akram
Kapil Dev

I was lucky to be watching cricket in the 70s and 80s. All sides in world cricket had good patches through that era.
That's a damn fine list. I might have McGrath at the expense of Dev, but not much to argue with otherwise.
 
Look Glenn McGrath had some solid performances but in the end he was really reliant on his off-cutter which I think hurts him in the end.

Anyone can just pic up a ball and have batsman fishing away outside his stumps nicking off-cutters. Especially on pace-friendly Oz wickets.

Lol what a hack, taking those wickets with off-cutters. Anyone who thinks otherwise knows SFA about cricket.
Off cutters are much like sweep shots. They don't count
 

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Let's be honest, you could probably get rid of half those names off the bat. Johnson, Thomson, Lee, Botham, Willis, Flintoff, Dev, Bond, Akhtar, Steyn, Vass - probably the ones I'm referring to.

My vote is for Malcolm Marshall. Hard to separate a lot of those amazing Windies bowlers seeing as how I never saw them live but basing the pick on the limited footage I've seen and the stories you hear about them. Amazing record, too.

If we are talking best strike bowlers of all time then from my era onwards (70's), there are three that are clear standouts (and I do mean clear):

Marshall (for mine...best of the best)
Younis
Steyn

To be the greatest bowler though you are required to not only be a strike bowler but also contain, intimidate etc etc.. Marshall had it all for mine.
 
If we are talking best strike bowlers of all time then from my era onwards (70's), there are three that are clear standouts (and I do mean clear):

Marshall (for mine...best of the best)
Younis
Steyn

To be the greatest bowler though you are required to not only be a strike bowler but also contain, intimidate etc etc.. Marshall had it all for mine.
Marshall was effective on any track including dust bowls on India where he bowled cutters more than effectively
 
Let's be honest, you could probably get rid of half those names off the bat. Johnson, Thomson, Lee, Botham, Willis, Flintoff, Dev, Bond, Akhtar, Steyn, Vass - probably the ones I'm referring to.

My vote is for Malcolm Marshall. Hard to separate a lot of those amazing Windies bowlers seeing as how I never saw them live but basing the pick on the limited footage I've seen and the stories you hear about them. Amazing record, too.
I think Steyn needs to be in the conversation at least.

I voted for Ambrose.
 
I didn't really start taking much notice of test cricket until the mid 1980s when I was about 8 or 10 years old, so I missed Marshall, Lillee and Thompson at their respective peak.

I always thought Sir Richard Hadlee looked like an unassuming chap for a fast bowler, but boy was he deadly when unleashed. Daniel Vettori might have something to say about it, but Hadlee (to me) is the best bowler NZ has ever produced.

I really enjoyed watching Allan Donald bowl. He presented himself in a manner that was designed to intimidate his opponent, with the zinc on the bottom lip or spread across both cheeks underneath a shock of blond hair, the eyes bulging in his delivery stride, the smooth manner in which he ran up to the wicket to bowl and the classical manner in which he bowled. Clearly Donald has had a huge influence on Steyn's bowling style.

Here's a clip of Donald bowling a ferocious spell to Steve and Mark Waugh in the second Test in the 1997/98 series where he peppered the Waugh twins with balls that jagged back from a good length and would have left a few welts and bruises on the batsmen. He didn't take a wicket in the spell, but it's one of the finest spells you're ever likely to see.



Here's a collection of Donald's 16 best clean bowled wickets.



But I loved Curtly Ambrose's bowling. The spell where he took seven Australian wickets for one run has already gone down in cricketing folklore as one of the best spells of fast bowling in test cricket history.

 
Very disappointed that somebody called MinerBoy did not choose Harold Larwood !

Haha, as I said, I only caught the end of Lillee's career.

My cricket team are the Miners, hence the name. I however am not one :) (well I am, as a cricket club player and coach.........but the mining days of this town stopped many years ago haha)
 
The metrics for this debate should be as follows: minimum 300 wickets taken (to demonstrate they had longevity and weren't one summer wonders), strike rate of 50 or better (to reflect how devastating the bowler was), average of 25 or better (to reflect how much control they offered a captain).

Plug that into statsguru and you get:

8fa3f49416bed8247b8f90e84e49212d.png


I am not interested in purely subjective 'Oh but Lillee did so-and-so that's why he's better than *insert superior bowler here*' or 'Oh but so-and-so sucked in *insert country here*' type arguments, the only way to settle this is through objective, hard data. If the data does not support your favourite bowler, then too bad, he isn't worthy of consideration; unless you can put forward a superior set of metrics.

The cut off is made at 300 wickets to rule out the possibility of statistical anomalies. Can't we all agree that to take 300 test wickets you pretty much have to be a once-in-a-generation kind of fast bowler, despite whatever minor limitations and flaws you might have?
with all the hype about Lilee, Magrath & Akram, a bowler that never gest a mention is Waqar Younis, was a tear away quick in his younger days but pace slowed due to years of injury's. he has one of the best records in all forms of cricket, Tests, ODI and FC cricket, yet never gets any real recognition. i wouldn't put him as the greatest as all time, but he surly has to be up there in the top few, based on his record as well as mainly bowling on the slow sub- contitant pitches, where as the Steyns, Lilie & co played far more often on juicy green tops
 
When I was a boy, old stagers of the time used to talk up FS Barnes as the best ever, even though he hadn't played Test cricket for over 50 years. Who's to say who was the best? Certainly not me.

Had a few teammates in England who had relatives who played against him
They still talked about how good he was in comparison to everyone else of the era, seemingly miles ahead
Must have been exceptional , shame we have no footage of him or Spofforth
 
Had a few teammates in England who had relatives who played against him
They still talked about how good he was in comparison to everyone else of the era, seemingly miles ahead
Must have been exceptional , shame we have no footage of him or Spofforth

Agreed, and that is why discussion on the greatest bowler ever is entertaining but pointless. We simply cannot compare all the great bowlers from different eras for a number of reasons. All we can say is who we think is the best bowler we've seen.

Spofforth is an interesting one. Obviously a great bowler of his time, but how quick was he really? I've read reports of wicket keepers standing up to the stumps to him. It would be great to watch footage of these guys.
 

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All Time Greatest Fast Bowler Ever

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