MIG
2nd February 2005, 11:19
Excellent commentary by Colin Croft taken from :
http://www.caribbeancricket.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1676
In Search of Fast Bowlers
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 @ 20:48:05 EST
commentary by COLIN CROFT
Looking at Brett Lee sprinting in to deliver his first over in international cricket for the Australian summer when he bowled against the West Indies in the opening match of the VB Series, one could not help but admire the athleticism, the purpose, the pace and the know-how. This guy was ready for the fray.
While many would agree that, in that first VB Series games, the West Indies had lost the game for lack of bowling depth, a situation that I had identified long before the West Indies team to the series was even selected, the Aussies making 301, I would suggest that Lee’s wicket of Chris Gayle, out LBW for a duck, was indeed the "champagne moment" of the game.
Gayle, with his purposeful, brave out-hitting, was expected to head the West Indies attack on that 301, unlikely as it would have been. His early dismissal literally ripped out the belly of the West Indies batting, the efforts of Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul notwithstanding.
There is nothing in cricket that pushes the pulses to their premium performances than looking at a really fast bowler tearing in to deliver his thunderbolts to a batsman. While even I would admit that there is much to say for the guile and manipulation of spinners trying to extricate batsmen, a process that usually takes some time, I doubt that anyone would disagree with me that the instant change that a great fast bowler could effect on his team and a game, with perhaps one delivery, a fact that has happened so often in the last several years, that even great spinners also have to admire the great fast bowlers.
Some recent instances of such instant greatness come to mind, some even from great spinners. In 1992, the great leg-spinner, Shane Warne, was in his first Test game in England. His first delivery in England would be remembered long after he has stopped playing cricket. Indeed, it would last much longer than his life. Such instant efforts last forever.
There was Warne, already with a growing reputation and with great expectations on his then young shoulders, bowling to England’s captain Mike Gatting at Lord’s. Warne flexed his right arm, pulled at his shirt with his left, and started in for his very first ball in Test cricket in England. He pitched the ball at a very full length, but way outside the leg stump. Gatting, pads put together so that he could protect the three stumps, rightly, must have thought that it would have been impossible for that ball to hit any of six stumps, had they been there, much less to hit one of the regulation three.
Gatting’s confusion, consternation and total horror were complete when the ultimate leg-break bounced, “gripped and ripped” and hit the top of Gatting’s off stump. Supposedly, the impossible has happened. Always will that delivery be known as “That Ball That Shook England.”
That delivery actually destroyed England’s chances of winning the series. Fear and uncertainty were so prevalent after that delivery that the series was already lost in the English camp, confidence defeated by a single delivery. The Australians romped home easy winners of that “Ashes” series with Shane Warne being the all-conquering hero.
In 1972, Australian Dennis Lillee, almost single-handedly, on his first tour to England, took care of his greatest cricketing enemies. He bowled so fast that batsmen were being bowled long before they could play strokes, so unfamiliar were they about real pace.
In 1981, England played against the might of the West Indies in Barbados in the 3rd Test match of that series. The West Indies had won the 1st Test in Trinidad & Tobago by a sizeable margin, with yours truly being the “Man of the Match” of that 1st Test. The 2nd Test in Guyana was politicized out with the Robin Jackman and his South African connections affair. It should be noted that the West Indies cricket team playing against England at that time contained perhaps the best combination ever, with especially the faster bowlers, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft and Joel Garner in the prime of their prime. Everyone was ultra fit, fully ready and raring to go.
Mikey Holding paced out his 30 meters of run up as if he was walking back to Jamaica, so distant was his bowling mark. Geoffrey Boycott, that great English opener, was to receive the first over. The rest is again cricket folklore. It certainly defeated the tourists.
The full 15,000 spectators were in total silence as Holding glided in, “Whispering Death” at his silent best. The first ball, delivered at great pace, thudded into wicket-keeper David Murray’s gloves long before Boycott could react. The next four deliveries, at even greater pace, either beat Boycott’s bat or hit his thigh-pads, such was the speed. The final delivery of that first over was a bit straighter, of a much fuller length and found Boycott’s bat as no match for it, the bat’s movement very late indeed.
Boycott’s off stump was plucked out of the ground with such ferocity that the wicket-keeper had to sidestep the now airborne stump-lance to avoid being impaled. The spectators erupted in a crescendo of noise while the English died, literally and figuratively. Later that evening, Ken Barrington, the great former English batsman, who was the touring team’s Assistant Manager, died of a heart attack, many suggesting, very ungracefully, that “Holding had killed him with pace”.
The rest of the team lasted another nearly three and a half days, with all of the fast bowlers getting among the wickets, yours truly even getting the most of them. England literally shivered after that first Holding over. The game was as good as over after that and it was easy for the rest.
Fast bowling is exhilarating, exciting and boils the blood as nothing can. Of course we have heard of Freddy Truman and Brian Statham, the English pair of fast bowlers that destroyed the West Indies in the early sixties. We know of Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith, the West Indian pair of fast bowlers that returned the favor to England. Later came John Snow, Ken Higgs, David Brown and R.G.D “Bob” Willis, all of England. Up to the early 70’s, fast bowlers in every Test team were normally selected in pairs, except when the English played Australia in that infamous “Bodyline Series” in the 30’s, when four were selected, including Bill Voce.
By the mid-70’s, Australia had also found four rattlers in Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thompson, Max Walker and Gary Gilmour, the formula, including tremendous batting from Ian and Greg Chappell, Doug Walters, destroying both England and the West Indies with such effect then that the West Indies captain, Clive Lloyd, decided then and there that he would do that too.
Lloyd was extremely fortunate. While he has already had Andy Roberts, who made his debut in 1974/5 against India with great effect, and Michael Holding, who had played in that infamous series in 1975/6 in Australia, where the West Indies were totally annihilated, Lloyd never in his wildest dreams expected to find Joel Garner, myself, Malcolm Marshall, Wayne Daniel and Sylvester Clarke all at the same time. To have seven good fast bowlers to select only four from must have been cricket heaven for Lloyd.
To augment this combination, any fast bowling combination he needed, Lloyd had the considerable services of Gordon Greenidge, Roy Fredericks, Dessie Haynes, Alvin Kallicharran, Viv Richards, Lawrence Rowe, Larry Gomes and later Gus Logie, along with Lloyd himself, not to mention the more than able wicket-keeper batsmen in Deryck Murray, David Murray and ultimate batsman-cum-wicket-keeper, Jeff Dujon. In retrospect, it is almost impossible to think that any combination of those could have been beaten at all.
So, we come back to the almost present, when Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose kept us in the hunt, combining with Kenny and Winston Benjamin, Ian Bishop and even Reon King, Franklyn Rose or Merv Dillon. The line ended with the departure of both Ambrose and Walsh.
Now the West Indies have Ian Bradshaw, who is just slower than leg-spinner Mahendra Nagamootoo, a still undeserving and certainly misplaced Merv Dillon, a very lucky Reon King and an honest but not fast Pedro Collins to help us think of days gone by.
Corey Collymore, Fidel Edwards, Jermaine Lawson, Tino Best, Jerome Taylor and others may return, but if you have not realized it yet, the West Indies need help in the bowling department, especially the fast bowling half, badly.
http://www.caribbeancricket.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1676
In Search of Fast Bowlers
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 @ 20:48:05 EST
commentary by COLIN CROFT
Looking at Brett Lee sprinting in to deliver his first over in international cricket for the Australian summer when he bowled against the West Indies in the opening match of the VB Series, one could not help but admire the athleticism, the purpose, the pace and the know-how. This guy was ready for the fray.
While many would agree that, in that first VB Series games, the West Indies had lost the game for lack of bowling depth, a situation that I had identified long before the West Indies team to the series was even selected, the Aussies making 301, I would suggest that Lee’s wicket of Chris Gayle, out LBW for a duck, was indeed the "champagne moment" of the game.
Gayle, with his purposeful, brave out-hitting, was expected to head the West Indies attack on that 301, unlikely as it would have been. His early dismissal literally ripped out the belly of the West Indies batting, the efforts of Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul notwithstanding.
There is nothing in cricket that pushes the pulses to their premium performances than looking at a really fast bowler tearing in to deliver his thunderbolts to a batsman. While even I would admit that there is much to say for the guile and manipulation of spinners trying to extricate batsmen, a process that usually takes some time, I doubt that anyone would disagree with me that the instant change that a great fast bowler could effect on his team and a game, with perhaps one delivery, a fact that has happened so often in the last several years, that even great spinners also have to admire the great fast bowlers.
Some recent instances of such instant greatness come to mind, some even from great spinners. In 1992, the great leg-spinner, Shane Warne, was in his first Test game in England. His first delivery in England would be remembered long after he has stopped playing cricket. Indeed, it would last much longer than his life. Such instant efforts last forever.
There was Warne, already with a growing reputation and with great expectations on his then young shoulders, bowling to England’s captain Mike Gatting at Lord’s. Warne flexed his right arm, pulled at his shirt with his left, and started in for his very first ball in Test cricket in England. He pitched the ball at a very full length, but way outside the leg stump. Gatting, pads put together so that he could protect the three stumps, rightly, must have thought that it would have been impossible for that ball to hit any of six stumps, had they been there, much less to hit one of the regulation three.
Gatting’s confusion, consternation and total horror were complete when the ultimate leg-break bounced, “gripped and ripped” and hit the top of Gatting’s off stump. Supposedly, the impossible has happened. Always will that delivery be known as “That Ball That Shook England.”
That delivery actually destroyed England’s chances of winning the series. Fear and uncertainty were so prevalent after that delivery that the series was already lost in the English camp, confidence defeated by a single delivery. The Australians romped home easy winners of that “Ashes” series with Shane Warne being the all-conquering hero.
In 1972, Australian Dennis Lillee, almost single-handedly, on his first tour to England, took care of his greatest cricketing enemies. He bowled so fast that batsmen were being bowled long before they could play strokes, so unfamiliar were they about real pace.
In 1981, England played against the might of the West Indies in Barbados in the 3rd Test match of that series. The West Indies had won the 1st Test in Trinidad & Tobago by a sizeable margin, with yours truly being the “Man of the Match” of that 1st Test. The 2nd Test in Guyana was politicized out with the Robin Jackman and his South African connections affair. It should be noted that the West Indies cricket team playing against England at that time contained perhaps the best combination ever, with especially the faster bowlers, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft and Joel Garner in the prime of their prime. Everyone was ultra fit, fully ready and raring to go.
Mikey Holding paced out his 30 meters of run up as if he was walking back to Jamaica, so distant was his bowling mark. Geoffrey Boycott, that great English opener, was to receive the first over. The rest is again cricket folklore. It certainly defeated the tourists.
The full 15,000 spectators were in total silence as Holding glided in, “Whispering Death” at his silent best. The first ball, delivered at great pace, thudded into wicket-keeper David Murray’s gloves long before Boycott could react. The next four deliveries, at even greater pace, either beat Boycott’s bat or hit his thigh-pads, such was the speed. The final delivery of that first over was a bit straighter, of a much fuller length and found Boycott’s bat as no match for it, the bat’s movement very late indeed.
Boycott’s off stump was plucked out of the ground with such ferocity that the wicket-keeper had to sidestep the now airborne stump-lance to avoid being impaled. The spectators erupted in a crescendo of noise while the English died, literally and figuratively. Later that evening, Ken Barrington, the great former English batsman, who was the touring team’s Assistant Manager, died of a heart attack, many suggesting, very ungracefully, that “Holding had killed him with pace”.
The rest of the team lasted another nearly three and a half days, with all of the fast bowlers getting among the wickets, yours truly even getting the most of them. England literally shivered after that first Holding over. The game was as good as over after that and it was easy for the rest.
Fast bowling is exhilarating, exciting and boils the blood as nothing can. Of course we have heard of Freddy Truman and Brian Statham, the English pair of fast bowlers that destroyed the West Indies in the early sixties. We know of Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith, the West Indian pair of fast bowlers that returned the favor to England. Later came John Snow, Ken Higgs, David Brown and R.G.D “Bob” Willis, all of England. Up to the early 70’s, fast bowlers in every Test team were normally selected in pairs, except when the English played Australia in that infamous “Bodyline Series” in the 30’s, when four were selected, including Bill Voce.
By the mid-70’s, Australia had also found four rattlers in Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thompson, Max Walker and Gary Gilmour, the formula, including tremendous batting from Ian and Greg Chappell, Doug Walters, destroying both England and the West Indies with such effect then that the West Indies captain, Clive Lloyd, decided then and there that he would do that too.
Lloyd was extremely fortunate. While he has already had Andy Roberts, who made his debut in 1974/5 against India with great effect, and Michael Holding, who had played in that infamous series in 1975/6 in Australia, where the West Indies were totally annihilated, Lloyd never in his wildest dreams expected to find Joel Garner, myself, Malcolm Marshall, Wayne Daniel and Sylvester Clarke all at the same time. To have seven good fast bowlers to select only four from must have been cricket heaven for Lloyd.
To augment this combination, any fast bowling combination he needed, Lloyd had the considerable services of Gordon Greenidge, Roy Fredericks, Dessie Haynes, Alvin Kallicharran, Viv Richards, Lawrence Rowe, Larry Gomes and later Gus Logie, along with Lloyd himself, not to mention the more than able wicket-keeper batsmen in Deryck Murray, David Murray and ultimate batsman-cum-wicket-keeper, Jeff Dujon. In retrospect, it is almost impossible to think that any combination of those could have been beaten at all.
So, we come back to the almost present, when Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose kept us in the hunt, combining with Kenny and Winston Benjamin, Ian Bishop and even Reon King, Franklyn Rose or Merv Dillon. The line ended with the departure of both Ambrose and Walsh.
Now the West Indies have Ian Bradshaw, who is just slower than leg-spinner Mahendra Nagamootoo, a still undeserving and certainly misplaced Merv Dillon, a very lucky Reon King and an honest but not fast Pedro Collins to help us think of days gone by.
Corey Collymore, Fidel Edwards, Jermaine Lawson, Tino Best, Jerome Taylor and others may return, but if you have not realized it yet, the West Indies need help in the bowling department, especially the fast bowling half, badly.