Hosted by Richie Benaud, the bowlers included Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz, Dennis Lillee, Michael Holding, Jeff Thompson, Andy Roberts, Richard Hadlee, Colin Croft and more...
I partially agree with you... legends are still part of the game...after 10 - 15 years, people will remember today's teams and say legends were part of the game 😃
An endless debate, of course, but my two cents’ worth. Every cricketing nation has produced express bowlers, and we’ll never know who bowled the fastest delivery ever. What, in my opinion, made Jeff Thomson unique was that he bowled at express pace all day. Quite possibly Frank Tyson, Harold Larwood, Kapil Dev, Richard Hadlee, Shoab Akhtar, Alan Donald, Michael Holding, Patrick Patterson, Curtly Ambrose et al. bowled a few deliveries or an over faster than Thomson ever did. The thing about Thomson was that he bowled at express pace all day. Clive Lloyd said that he was just as quick in the last over before stumps as he was in the first over of the morning session. That’s what made him special. There have been many more intelligent fast bowlers, but none as consistently fast over days of play.
What an era it was! All the bowlers featured in this short documentary are the fast bowling legends. Also, West Indies became known for its fast speedy quartet, but few people know that Clive Lloyd thought of recruiting intimidating fast bowlers after the fast bowling duo Dennis Lillee - Jeff Thomson intimidated West Indian batsmen during West Indies' tour of Australia in 1975-76, and the rest is history.
And he brought them in after west indies lost to India and went 1 nil down to them after a test in port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. The pace quartet turned the series around, windies won that series 2 to 1. India and west indies played two fascinating series in the 1970's. The first one was the 1971 series, which India won 1 nil. Gavaskar scored a lot of runs in this series. What made both series so fascinating was the contrast between the pace bowling lineup of the windies and the Indian spinners. India was the only test playing nation with a spin dominated attack.
It feels wrong to hear somebody criticising the likes of Imran Khan, but then you remember it’s Richie Benaud and he can say whatever he likes about cricket 😂
Bear in mind that Sunny never faced Thomson at his fastest either - the 1977-78 season was AFTER the shoulder injury which robbed him of several yards.
Super fast bowlers - legends all - but Andy Roberts on the green at full tilt was something else. A bowler with a fast bouncer and a slow bouncer - whew - the Late Mr. Brian Close had talked about it.
My favourite quote from Clive Lloyd (and didn't we respect big Clive )...."If you face Jeff Thompson, with no helmet, and you were not scared....you are a liar"
yep, that was the classic era huh, late 70s early 80s, so many great players and characters in the game and one day-ers white ball coloured clothing were new and exciting etc.
1979 - One player springs to mind immediately Jeff Thomson but don’t forget Harold Larwood in the 30’s and Frank Tyson in the 50’s for we will never know how fast they bowled.
Since the horizontal component of velocity is being measured it's best to bowl full (yorker length) and straight to record the highest speed. Most of the bowlers are wasting their efforts by bowling bouncers especially Andy Roberts.
Those saying the ball was recorded at the batsman's end are wrong. Those saying the ball was recorded out of the hand are also wrong. Modern measurments track the speed of the ball the instant it leaves the hand, the measurment observed here is the distance of the grid (perhaps a couple of feet) over which time the ball will slow down slightly. The numbers these bowlers would be bowling with modern measurments would be marginally faster. Another note is that this competition was held on a 40 degree day.
@@ude3333 I didn't say "two feet", the measurement of the ball speed is measured over the distance between the release point and the edge of the frame, that appears to be around 2-3 feet.
Imran Khan s bowling action was perfect with high jump after him holding, later on Imran Khan became fast in 80s era before injury, he bowled 140 to 147 , and started new art reverse swing introduce to the world,
I am surprised so many of these fast bowlers didn't realize that bowling shortish takes a yard or two off the measured pace, because the pace is measured along the pitch alone, and not in the perpendicular direction. Only Jeff Thomson seems to have understood this, bowling full tosses.
Under rated great Imran khan by saying he is fast medium and sometimes fast..and Imran khan superseded to most of them like Andy Roberts and Dennis Lillie by speed and accuracy just behind Michael Holding and Jeff Thompson. Anyway they were all great legends, belongs to golden era of cricket. It was like a real clash of the titans.
Bowlers have different days when they are in a riddim and bowled fast. It is hard to put 5 or 6 fast Bowlers to run up and bowl their fastest. Most times a bowler needs some motivation.
Yep exactly, pretty much all these bowlers have clocked 155+ and that was in an actual game against a batsman. You can’t expect usain bolt to even go sub 10 during practice or friendly competition cause there’s no motivation or drive in practice unlike a competition
IMRAN KHAN was my favourite of all times, not only was he a fast bowler, a great all rounder but the best Captain out of all these great Cricketers , they were all legends .
Jeff Thompson was in an another league altogether. He could have killed batsmen instantly with those speeds especially as they didn't have helmets in those days. That's downright lethal ...
Yeah it's injury risk, no administration is going to let their nation's fastest bowler risk a potentially permanent injury by going all out just for bragging rights. It would be interesting if they could gather data during matches to have an annual fastest bowler or fastest of the world cup award. They can put a camera directly above the bowler with spider cam these days I would think that would let you get extremely accurate measurement without needing the bowlers to bowl just for the sake of being measured.
The funniest thing is how they recount everyone's average speed and highest speed at the end - except for Sarfraz. What on earth was he doing there? Medium pacer.
Mesurements were carried out at 90Deg. to the two creases near to the boundary. Testing was done in Perth WA as part of studies performed by UWA. There were no devices that measured linearly in 1979.
@@flamingfrancis for this competition, or for games? Surely in this one the grid parallel to the crease, plus the frame rate is what calculates the speed? Ie distance over time?
@creativity2598 Are you for reel ? There were fragments of Mike Gatting's nasel bone tissue in-bedded in the ball after Marshall hit him in the face at Sabina Park !! Marshall also took his 376 Test wickets at 20.94. He was also fit and could bowl all day unlike Shoab
It was always known that Thommo was the fastest of his era. He was a top Javelin thrower that is why he had such a slingee action. In my 40 years of watching top level cricket only Shoaib A and Brett Lee have clocked as fast. Special mention to Waqar who was super quick for a smaller guy.
Waqar Younis was officially timed at 153kph after his injuries. I heard that he was recorded around 157kph before he got injured, but it was not officially verified so it remains speculation. Regardless Waqar was a true freak in his own regard. Can you name any other bowler who could reverse swing the ball like he did at 150+ with lethal accuracy on the stumps, like he did during the 1990s?
Methods used to measure speed are different. Shoaib's speed was measured only at the time of release. But in this video they measure speed based on time taken by ball to reach other end. And we all know that speed drops considerably once you hit the deck
Yes but Michael Holding was tested using very similar equipment and methods to current ones in 1980 by an Aussie Uni and he topped out at around 138km. I watched a lot of Garth Le Roux and Croft in the 80s and these speeds look bang on the mark.
A fired up Sylvester Clarke would have been up there no question! Ask Alan Kourie? Here's a clip from Wiki.. "Alan Kourie recalls that Clarke, during the unofficial West Indies 1983 rebel tour, recorded speeds between 98 mph and 101 mph by two South African police officers testing out a new automobile speed radar gun who were present at Johannesburg ground."
We hear bs stories like those coppers all the time....who is to say that the alleged radar gun had been calibrated correctly to a standard and / or was in calibration. In any case the West Indies so called rebels played in the World Series years 1977 to 1979.
Richard Hadley is running a successful business in South India with my Malyali friend's friend. People always encircle him for autographs and stuff here. He is so fond of South India I believe.
@@2Tubist Yes, safraz did make all batsman wet their underwear - with laughter:) He was fast medium at best and had a test bowling average of just under 33 and a strike rate of just under 80! Ooooh... scary. His bowling stats against AUS? 15 matches, 52 wickets at 35.15 with a strike rate of 86.9. Calm down.
Did anyone else have the Brett Lee fast bowling VHS as a kid like me? It also included the results of this competition and an interview with Jeff. He said he wasn't even well during this competition.
I can't help thinking that if they had a batsman at the other end, it could have made them all bowl just a little bit faster! If each bowler had been allowed to choose their most hated batsman to bowl to (or at!), then it would have made things more interesting. I also think that bowling a full over, rather than individual deliveries would have helped the bowlers with rhythmn and accuracy.
Thomson bowled a heap of full tosses which the gun picks up as much quicker (we know that now). Some of the West Indian guys were definitely quicker than the speed gun because they bowled shorter.
The speed of the ball was measured as it left the hand not as it reached the batsman (or where they normally stand) so it shouldn't matter whether they bowl full or short.
@@truthseeker3536 It would appear slower because the radar calculates the ball speed travelling at it. The higher the angle of attack the slower the speed it read by the radar, this is why full tosses are typically recorded at a higher speed.
What nobody seems to realise is that during that time bowling speeds were measured calculating the time the ball took at the time it left the bowlers fingers to the point at which it reached the stumps using frames per second!Nowadays bowling speeds are measured the second the ball leaves the bowlers fingers disregarding atmospheric and aerodynamic conditions and the slowing down of the ball after hitting the pitch!So mates no one can convince me that the run of the mill bowlers clicking 143 odd kmph are faster than a Michael Holding leave alone Jeff Thomson!One more thing Imran's action hadn't evolved totally into what it was in 81 onwards when he was at least a yard quicker than this!So guys in my humble opinion these guys were the real deal!
in those days they used to measure speed of the ball from the time it left a bowlers hand until the it reached the batsman.it lost as much as 10% of the original speed.it's different now, speed is measured in the first 4-5 feet it has travelled after leaving the bowler's hand. So technically thomson bowled at 162.69.
@@aliasgarasgie Kapil made his debut in 1978, I guess too early by 1979 to be invited here. Holding made debut in 75 series, so playing for 4 years by then.
Kapil after 1980 was a medium pacer,barely hitting 125-130 range, the quickest in India then was ta Sekhar and before in the 70s salgaonkar, neither played test cricket sadly.
@@TAKLUFC yeah right. 434 wickets, more than half of them being from the top order and 250 of them in 63 tests against full-strength teams from England, Pakistan, West Indies and Australia compared to a guy who didn't even cross 200. Can't be taken into the same bracket in any sense.
Thanks for this. Remember this as a little kid. Be interesting to see it done with modern tech taken back with a time machine lol. Comparing eras is something that can't be done.
I think they can measure (to a point) with old footage. They need to work out angles and camera positions of the day, but they measure the distance travelled between two frames to calculate. I always thought they measured speed these days with radar but they actually use the DRS ball tracking to calculate, apparently it is far more accurate and faster.
What if such competitions are held now and the same equipment for testing the speed of the current bowlers. Some confusion or myth can be cleared. Also I would like to add another point the 15 degree elbow flexion was not implemented back then . Which seems like they may not be so fast & furious but were genuine pacers with clean undisputed action. Because the flexion gives a clear advantage in terms of bounce swing and pace. Lee ,Tait and akthar cleary have some flexion in their actions. Where as Starc Johnson Bond Milne fidel Edwards and some bowlers who clocked over 150 have very less or sometimes negligible amount of flexion.
I believe to add 5 to 7 kmph speed to measured speed due to technical limitations those days, with today's measuring techniques their speeds would have been 5-7 kmph more....hats off to all legends.
No it is accurate measuring. The speed in this era that you see is shown from release until first bounce. The speed back in the days is shown from release until reaching the wickets. So they were bowling approx 152kph on average on the meters used now
@@foodieranger9652 pulling figures out of your ass ain't doing it for me i'm afraid. The true answer is, we will never know. Seeing as Thomson was recorded in the 70's bowling a ball at 100 mph, by your calculations it was even faster. but... it all depends where the ball pitched...
@@foodieranger9652 I agree, I think in this competition they were quoting the average speed of the ball not the speed out of the hand. I can remember reading in a newspaper just after this competition that Imran's fastest ball was timed at 154kph.
@@jugheadsrule Imran between 1980 to 1988 was sharp 145 km/h pretty much all day...This was a disputed competition in my opinion..1975 cameras were more accurate
For those why may think the speed is not fast. The speed in this era that you see is shown from release until first bounce. The speed back in the days is shown from release until reaching the wickets. So they were bowling approx 152kph on average on the meters used now
Nah they weren't anywhere near that. You can see the difference in pace looking at the ball and the action/follow through. Thompson is really the only one bowling express.
@@ude3333 No they had high speed cameras its was measured full length you see the screen on the replays that measures the bowlers end and the timing is then matched with the camera at the batters end so you need to add around approx 15% to get similar out of the hand speeds there is a video on here with Imran and Thomson talking about how it was done.
Fail to see why so many are finding fault with the outcome. Thommo was in a bar when he got the news about the 'shoot-out'. He hadn't played in 6 months as he has said on many occasions in interviews, Channel 7(?) knew this but encouraged him anyway. The others were all match fit, playing or at least training for a 'season' coming up. They all had the same rules and conditions. They knew the rules... no real warm-ups as if playing in a match and having had several overs to get rhythm. The comments from batsmen and commentators of the time talking about Thommo, pretty much backed up the truth he was the fastest. Lloyd, Richards, Bumble ( David LLoyd) Lawrence Rowe, Dujon, Lillee, Pascoe, Grieg and here's a direct comment from England Captain Mike Brierley said, “Broken marriages, conflicts of loyalty, the problems of everyday life fall away as one faces up to Thomson.” The accuracy prize must been sweet for him as the detractors have always said he was wild and no control. Truth is he always bowled to get the ball down to the batsmen/stumps as fast as he could so that was his style...he pretty much bowled using sheer pace, (he has said that too on many occasion, think sometimes he does play up to the image some people have of him)... whereas the others were trying to beat him ( they all knew who was the fastest) and by just bowling as fast as they could.. accuracy went. I find it funny that the relatively unfit 'Bankstown beach-bum's' average speed was still faster than any of their fastest balls !!
I believe Kerry packer asked thommo why he wasn't down there trying out . Thommo had problems with contracts with cricket Australia or something. Mr packer in true packer style told thommo i own this you get your ass down there and you'd better win, I think thommo said Mr packer had had a substantial side bet for thommo to win .packer made sure thommo was included..
@@aussiesmoko Thomo is the Chopper Reed of the cricket world. Some of what he says may be accurate but you don't let the truth get in the way of a good yarn!
In his own words, "I'd been sittin' on me arse on me back verandah all summer, drinkin' beer". Bear in mind this was also a couple of years after the collision with Alan Turner which wrecked hos shoulder and robbed him of several yards. He was still quick after that but no longer terrifying.
Thommo goes around saying that the speed was measured at the batsman end.... Clearly, the measurement device is at the bowlers end measuring during delivery stride and release.
Those days the speed was calculated when the ball hit the bat/pad or an object. These days the technology detects the speed when the ball leaves bowlers hand.
Facing them was like standing🧍 before a battery of shooters. Even the batsmans country men shivered. Their runup & the ball traversing the length of pitch & the long journey to keepers.
Yeah, they only got 8 balls as well. Thommo was measured in 1975 at close to 160kph and who knows how fast he actually bowled when he had a full head of steam up?
I was born more than thirty years after this event but i’ve always taken it as evidence that thommo was the quickest bowler of all time. Even after a shoulder injury that teammates said took 5kmh off his pace he was still the fastest bowler in the world. I have no doubt that he was pushing 165 in his prime in 1974
In 1991 waqar was ferocious. Made Imran Khan appear a medium pacer. Who can forget Waqar younis for Surrey in 1991. Nothing compared to him . He scared batsmen into submission. 95 mph plus inswinging yorkers. He revolutionised fast bowling. Unbelievable legend. Imagine that Waqar in this competition. The speed of the run up and the ferocious stride . All these guys would be nothing against him. At his prime he was as fast or possibly faster than Shoaib Akhtar.
Waqar was never as quick as shoaib. He was a gifted bowler who can banana swing it , you can’t swing a ball as much as waqar did bowling 95 mph plus 85 to 88 mph waqar was
@@isaacali2890 That was his latter stage of his career. When he first came on the scene, prior to his stress fracture he was the fastest ever seen 1989 to 1991 era. He most probably smashed the 100 mph barrier. He was faster than Shoaib Akhtar at that stage of his career.
@@TS-cy1hr Your in dreamland. He wasn’t clocking 90mph in 96, he was 140kph at best in 1996 in England that’s 85 to 87mph and he was only 24 years old. So to go 10 or 15 mph slower in his 20s is absurd
@@TS-cy1hr no it wasn’t . He was 85 to 87mph in 1996 test match v England at age 24 . Shoaib and Brett were clocking 95mph plus in there 30s so it’s absurd to compare waqar with those 2 when he couldn’t clock 90 at 24
I took photos at a Windies vs Australia melbourne test in 75, At 1/500th sec the ball was spherical for Lillee, and smudged ,indicating greater speed, for Thommo.Thompson at his fearsome best, player of the match that test.
I recalled Clive Lloyd taking a big step back and to leg when Thommo was at his most fearsome in that game. He must have been terrifying if Clive Lloyd took a backward step.
@@sayedrouf6744 old school film/analogue camera; Nikon F2 Photomic with a 500mm telephoto lens, film- Kodak Tri-X ASA 400. exposure 1/500 th of a second.
I have NO IDEA why the issue of fastest bowler was ever an issue! FFS - just count the number of frames from release of ball til when it reaches the popping crease!!! Fewest frames = fastest bowler!!! It couldn't be easier if you have the technological means to count frames (which is surely pretty low-tech). Maybe people like to measure how fast it comes out of the hand but I think that's a side issue: what counted, in terms of giving the batsman the least amount of reaction time or time to adjust, was time from release to being adjacent to your bat or body.......
Best? Lillee also took 67 wickets in World Series cricket (probably higher standard than test cricket, and he was the top wicket-taker), which would put him on 422 when added to his “official” 355 test wickets.
From a book titled the Quicks by Robert Drane. Came out in 2022: It’s Thommo’s effect we’ll remember. His shattering, pillaging, trucking-well effectiveness. Who cares about statistics? Thommo doesn’t. His influence on a game - on the game - was enormous. Why? Because he was not only inhumanly fast; he made that rock do unprecedentedly vicious things, with steepling, blast-off bounce, from what was previously considered a good length. Good batsmen had their faces, ribcages and life-priorities rearranged. Opponents who’d just come off triumphant series were reduced to pallid, frail wraiths. He made batsmen who dined on good bowlers want to apologise for hitting him to the boundary. Not one worthy archrival stood when he was in the mood to prove batting was a hoax, its greatest practitioners overrated. Speed guns? Anyone who saw him, or faced him, especially pre-1977, would be amused at the ‘fastest man in history’ contest between Brett Lee and Shaoib Akhtar. Thomson was officially measured, long after the 1976 on-field collision that ruined his bowling shoulder. Two years before that, he’d already hurt it during a tennis match. The video assessment happened during season 1978-79, when he didn’t play, and had been sitting around drinking beer for months. In fact, he put down a beer to participate in the little exercise. Against Holding, Lillee, Roberts, Khan and LeRoux, he clocked the quickest, around 150, hardly extending himself. The Wild Man surprisingly also proved most accurate. He’d been unofficially clocked three years earlier, at over 160. Lillee, by the way, was timed at mid-150s then, after his comeback with reduced pace. Ian Chappell, never given to exaggeration, ignores ‘studies’, measurements, or historical judgements. He believed there was Thomson, then daylight, then the frightening Holding. ‘He had another gear’. Rod Marsh was in the front row, as Thommo’s wicketkeeper. I spent a week with him at the Cricket Academy in 1998. He was effusive then about a kid named Brett Lee. Later, he put the Lee-Akhtar ‘duel’ in perspective: ‘If they’re bowling 160, Thommo bowled 180.’ Clive Lloyd faced or played with them all. ‘There’s only one way to play him’, the fearless and ferocious Big Cat said once in his laconic way, ‘and that’s to get up the other end.’
I am sorry to advise that Richie Benuad was incorrect in saying Michael Holding was a great Jamaican track athlete. Holding himself admitted that some cricket commentors had got it wrong. It was another athlete who resembled Holding but not Micky as he was affectionately known in the Caribbean.
I remember when my cousins would come over and play cricket in the yard I would try to imitate every bowler in the world and the one I use to love imitating was hadlee
the cross-over step at the start right?! Yep he had a legendary action, so fluid and efficient, and I might I also say, took more Test wickets than any player involved in this competition.
Finally, I found a video and all debates are settled. This really shows their actual speed. And if they bowl couple of overs they will slow down further. I have seen old videos and they all look medium pace but a lot of hype is created around their pace unnecessarily. Modern bowlers definitely bowl faster and for a longer time.
No way those speed recordings are correct! I've seen james Anderson bowl and he gets up to around 138 kph. I've seen Andy Roberts bowl and he was much faster than Anderson Roberts and Holding must easy have got 90mph+ i
@@pubudusenanayake6724 Exactly! The stupidity of some people amaze me. They used basic physics here, distance covered in a particular time, for the calculation and it is extremely accurate.
@@bonjourr100 I've seen Roberts, Thompson, Holding Akram, and on his day Roberts was as fast as any of them. He was more of a subtle bowler who mixed it up
And there you have it: Hadlee the 2nd slowest of the bunch - but the best overall because of skill levels. I think Brett Lee, Shoaib, Tait etc would be right at or near the top of all time. Funny that super-fast bowlers not really around any more....
@@Jassim666 what do you mean my can't be the fastest in one then not faster in the other the fastest bowl ever bowled was by shoaib akhtar 100.3 mph making him the fastest bowler in history
@@BRG1807 If you were a regular watcher of cricket, you would know that Brett Lee consistently kept bowling long spells at 155+. Shoaib used to bowl at 150+ for about 5 overs after which his pace always dropped to 145-147 kmph and he used to start missing his lengths. Yes Shoaib bowled one ball at 160.1 but that was it. Other than that, Brett Lee was always faster than him. Shoaib's heavy frame used to tire him out fast and hamper his mobility, while Brett Lee used to be ultra-fit and have unbelievable levels of endurance. As much as people would hate to admit it, Brett Lee was the scarier deal because he brought the whole package with him like seam, swing, accuracy and extreme pace. Shoaib used to swing for 4 overs with atleast 4 wides, and after that he would lose all movement and with no options left, he would have to resort to bouncers. After three more overs, he would lose all steam and batsmen would milk him off.
It's strange watching Holding and Lillee bowling at just above Darren Stevens pace, in the high 120s kph (around 78 mph). Amazing how cricketers have evolved in the 40 years since, adding more than 20 kph at the top end of fast bowling. Edit - should've watched more than the first 2 balls! They got quicker.
The speed here is recorded when the ball crosses the wickets not at release like they do now. Its about a 10% difference in speed. He'd be around 145 if measured the way it is now. And Thommo's fastest here would be over 160.
