Ray Lindwall - master of control, Lillee - an imperishable giant

By A.C De Silva

Dennis Lillee gallops to the wicket like a colt all knees arms and at the wicket he is an uncoiling spring.

Ray Lindwall at his fastest had a wicked bouncer and without changing his action he could bowl a ball to whistle round a batsman’s ears.

RAY LINDWALL AND DENNIS LILLEE... About a half century ago Ray Lindwall could well have been a prized celebrity visitor to a downtown dance hall, perhaps he would have done it for the make of a Dennis Lillee was much more likely to have got a fee, and a large one than to have made a personal appearance.

So with their bowling. Who has the most wickets and the best average? Who sent the bails further into the next parish? Whose deliveries hurt the most when they thud into the unprotected thigh? Which of them is the more alarming? We can measure wickets. Can we measure pain or fear? Even if we can, the details are alike irrelevant to a study of the two great bowlers.

What is important is that they were both fast bowlers who were adjudged outstanding in their generation by their peers among cricketers. What is more they wore of the same kind. The bowling action of both men flowed. They exhibited grace as well as pace. Not for them the sudden explosion at the wicket like those of their great partners Keith Miller and Jeff Thomson.

Therein, too, lies a valid comment: both had partners who added a second dimension to their menace at least in the eyes of the batsmen. Some days Keith Miller was inclined to pooh-pooh the notion that fast bowlers bowled best in pairs. A bowler he says is a bowler, who stands or falls by what he does. That is true but may not be the whole truth.

Nor would it be true to say that the bowling actions of Lindwall and Lillee though similar, had much in common upon analysis.

Lillee, for example, gallops to the wicket like a colt all knees and arms: Lindwall ran as fast but with an absence of exaggerated movement, like a shell rather than a swallow.

At the wicket Lillee is an unceiling spring: Lindwall was a swiftly rocking sew-saw as his trunk worked. The Lindwall drag became a scandal to those who strictly interpreted the no-ball law. Lillee’s final strike was less noticeable than his follow-through. Hence, Lillee tore on down the wicket his left shoulder leading whereas Lindwall still moving sweetly pulled away as smoothly as he had arrived. Most startling of all, Lindwall was a heretic in the matter of his arm action. Seldom his arm even approach the vertical. Lillee’s arms came high whilst Lindwall showed himself a direct descendant of the round arm bowlers of the last century.

Which of them was the more hostile, the bowler who attacked you both physically and mentally. Doubtless Len Hutton would give you a different answer from John Edrich. We can say, however, that in Lillee’s time more balls are bowled by fast bowlers and intended to hit them was the case with Lindwall.

For all that Lindwall at his fastest had a wicked bouncer. Without changing his action at will, he could bowl a ball to whistle round a batsman’s ears. Nor was it predictable as Lillee’s. Lillee’s likes and dislikes on the field are ever obvious. Lindwall’s passions were muted.

For a close follower of the game, each man has a special mark of distinction. Lindwall in 1956 killed off the legislators’ idea that a smaller ball should be used by the single expedient of bowling too well with the bigger one. Watching at the back of the not in a sheer disbelief it was noticed that Lindwall hit one corner post three times and then the other with deliveries which swung late.

And when the over was finished there were six marks on the seam where each and every one had pitched. Truly a master of control of body, arm, wrist and fingers. As for Lillee, it is his fight against the physical damage to his back, that used to give him all the pain. True, he had the devoted support of the best brains in medicine and physical education in Australia. But the hours of recuperative torture were his and his alone.

It was said that he would never again bowl fast. But he did and with such style that Packer built WSC with Lillee’s mended back as the lead bearing foundation stone. Even though his pace declined the crowds were with him. But nor, for that matter, will the sight of Lindwall at full pelt also never declined. Both fast bowlers were giants: and as such imperishable.