Best bowlers to watch

[PhatBoy]

Just watching Rabada bowl.

I didn’t get to watch Holding live but obviously I’ve seen footage and he was poetry.

But f**k Rabada is just beautiful to watch when he is in full flight.

Just made me thing who else looked aesthetically good when they bowled?

Warne not just for how good he bowled but his actual action was lovely. Very rhythmical when he was at his peak.

Anderson by the time he hit his peak was so at ease with what he was doing was just languid and very comfortable.

He cops so much shit but I think Mitchell Starc has a beautiful action - Trent Boult also; maybe it’s the lefty thing.

There’s a lot of guys who had lovely actions that were great to watch but the pace they bowled ‘matched’ the effort they were putting in if that makes sense, so for example Donald and Steyn both had beautiful actions but they both charged in and their arms were very quick and the ball speed matched the effort.


Gillespie is another bowler I thought who looked graceful and rhythmical at the crease and Alzarri Joseph has a lot of the same characteristics.

But yeah if I had to choose a bowler to… well, put in a porno it would be Rabada

 

[Plugger35]

Holding, Hadlee, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Philander, they were poetry in motion that could make the ball talk with seam and swing.

 

[PhatBoy]

Holding, Hadlee, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Philander, they were poetry in motion that could make the ball talk with seam and swing.

Philander very good call, obviously wasn’t quick anyway so wasn’t pace related but just ambled in and put it wherever the hell he wanted to. The others were all pretty graceful too to be fair but yeah definitely something about philander seemed incredibly economical and just ‘get to the crease and roll the arm over’

 

[Plugger35]

Malcolm Marshall was arguably the best bowler of the lot, he could seam and swing it at express pace but struggled to get a start.

He had to battle with Roberts, Holding, Croft and Garner just to get a start in the West Indies bowling line up, tough competition.

 

[PhatBoy]

Malcolm Marshall was arguably the best bowler of the lot, he could seam and swing it at express pace but struggled to get a start.

He had to battle with Roberts, Holding, Croft and Garner just to get a start in the West Indies bowling line up, tough competition.

His angled run up rubs me the wrong way for some reason

 

[Aussie_boy]

Steyn
Starc when he has the white ball talking is great viewing.
Shaun Tait for pure excitement, Shoaib Akhtar the same.
Random one but I love watching Joel Paris on song.

 

[PhatBoy]

Steyn
Starc when he has the white ball talking is great viewing.
Shaun Tait for pure excitement, Shoaib Akhtar the same.
Random one but I love watching Joel Paris on song.

Actually must say shoaib’s action was spectacular

 

[Gethelred]

I have a lot of time for aesthetically pleasing spinners. There was something magical about watching Herath and Vettori bowl that was and is timeless to me; a mixture of master of craft and guile that allowed subtle variations to work.

If we're talking quicks, anyone who can get the ball to seem to leap off the pitch faster than it left the hand gets the blood going. There's not that many genuine quicks in the game at present; Mark Wood is about the only bloke who can consistently hit that 150km mark, and the only bloke who can get the thing flying through like that. I've seen footage of Holding bowl, and he's the exemplar of this sort of thing for me; the smooth fluent action, but the ball hitting the pitch and seemingly gathering pace.

The reason why Shamar Joseph was so brilliant that day in Brisbane is because he found something mercurial. Some blokes just have it in them to run through you. For that one spell, he got the ball to fly through faster than he ever had, and it was stunning to watch.

 

[Some Idiot]

It's been a while but Shane Warne is definitely up there, always seemed to be working the batsman over, felt like you were watching a magician as he problem solved how to get the batsman out

 

[Cmarsh]

Shane Bond on song could really make that ball move viciously.

 

[Pistol Night]

Day 5 Warne. Mitch Johnson at the WACA. Any English spinner when we're batting

 

[Robroy22]

Lillee and Thompson against the Poms

Warne anytime.

 

[western royboy]

Holding will always be my favourite, “whispering death” - just the perfect nickname to summarise what I think is the most perfect rhythmic and fluent action.

Marshall I had the fortune to face in a competitive match, which was an honour. He was a freak.

Yesterday i got to watch the greatness of Bumrah from close range. His shoulders are massive! Unbelievable that he generates it all from effectively 4-5 steps.

For variety, I loved watching Wasim Akram when he was on song. The best left armer i have seen. I would be pretty happy taking those 4 in a side.

 

[Plugger35]

Warnie was the greatest spin bowler I've ever seen, he could change the momentum of a test match.

I remember being at a test against South Africa in 2005 at the WACA where he bowled AB De Villiers.

There was a Warnie chant at the WACA like the old Lillee chant and he wasn't even a West Australian.

 

[caveman72]

It's a shame we never got to see Allan Donald in full flight at the WACA in a test match

 

[Trojan90]

Watching Warne highlights on Xmas day reminded me of that feeling that something might happen every ball. Just the aura he had. Truely was a weapon Australia could just unleash.

 

[PhatBoy]

There’s guys I really like watching as much as some of those mentioned - I love watching Nortje stomping in like a draft horse only he’s fast and athletic and with his big tache and angry demeanour and sending down absolute rockets but there’s nothing graceful about it so it doesn’t have ‘that’ aesthetic appeal

 

[Plugger35]

It's a shame we never got to see Allan Donald in full flight at the WACA in a test match

I saw Brett Lee at the WACA and he was scary fast, he cleaned up Alex Tudor who was no slouch.

 

[Plugger35]

Some of the armchair experts here calling test cricketers gutless.

Imagine them being Harmison facing Brett Lee after Tudor got cleaned up at the WACA.

 

[borntigerfan]

Loved to watch Wasim Akram and Dale Steyn

 

[PhatBoy]

Some of the armchair experts here calling test cricketers gutless.

Imagine them being Harmison facing Brett Lee after Tudor got cleaned up at the WACA.

I’m sometimes guilty of just saying in my head to WI players ‘it can’t be that hard to just get behind the line’ but then I’ll see a reel on social media of Flintoff’s spell to Kallis from nearly 20 years ago reminds me of how gutsy they have to be: moreso when you consider it was revealed later that Flintoff’s release point was above the sightscreen and coming out of a dark window just above it; Morne Morkel’s release point was too high for it to matter and was coming out of a white background. Kallis himself never complained he just said ‘fair play to him it was a great spell’

 

[Jim Prideaux]

Curtly Ambrose and Waqar Younis when I was younger. Watching Glen McGrath at Lords was always pretty special.

Always had a soft spot for Andy Bichel too

Edit: Who was the South African who used to almost pause midair in the 90’s/early 2000’s?

 

[The 747]

TV didn't really do McGrath's action justice. Live it was so smooth to watch.

 

[PhatBoy]

Curtly Ambrose and Waqar Younis when I was younger. Watching Glen McGrath at Lords was always pretty special.

Always had a soft spot for Andy Bichel too

Edit: Who was the South African who used to almost pause midair in the 90’s/early 2000’s?

Klusener had a pretty big pause

 

[Jim Prideaux]

Klusener had a pretty big pause

That’s him, Lance, used to love imitating that. Cheers Phat.