Fast bowling - a major spectacle in cricket

By A.C. De Silva

FLASHBACK: In the game of cricket, a sight guaranteed to stir the emotions as much as the lofty hit for six as the cartwheeling stump, plucked from the ground by a fast bowler "getting his man".

Fast Bowling has been a major spectacle of cricket since over-arm actions were legalised; and ever since Australian Ernie Jones fired a ball through W.G. Grace's whiskers, arguments upon the quickest bowlers in the world have waxed as fast and furious as an opening spell by Freddie Trueman.

Well, who is the fastest bowler in the world? Several years ago the London "Daily Mail" used a scientific device for measuring the speeds of three of the best-known fast bowlers of the day; Trueman, Australian Alan Davidson and West Indian Wesley Hall.

These timing devices can never be entirely satisfactory unless all the bowlers operated under exactly the same conditions in the same match. Even then, fast bowlers admit that whereas their rhythm might be perfect one day, it is all away the next.

The state of the run-up wind direction, slope of ground, state of the match, and, above all, the pace of the pitch - all these have a good deal to do with governing a bowler's speed.

Scientific methods can do no more than give approximations relation to actual match conditions, but it was interesting to note this particular test showed Hall's bowling through the air to be the fastest of the trio at 85 mph, while Trueman's was only a little behind at 84 mph, and showed less of pace off the pitch than the West Indian. Davidson's speed was well down in the 70's but, like Trueman, also revealed remarkably little loss of efficiency upon pitching.

Hall - the fastest

This experiment did, in fact, tend to confirm what many batsmen now believe: that Hall was the fastest of modern bowlers when he was in his prime. There are some splendid bruises to support the view. The same batsmen will also say that Davidson towards the end of his career was not genuinely fast, relying more on swing and swerve, and Trueman was not quite as he was, say some years back.

The quality of England's fast bowling was not what it was in the sixties, for Brian Statham, day in and out the most consistent fast bowler in the world during say - the last three decades.

Physical fitness was the order of the day for the MCC's 1954-55 Australian tour and fellow passengers who saw Frank Tyson's "cross-country runs around over-heated decks in Red Sea temperatures can vouch that Frank Tyson followed the order to the letter.

Little did Tyson realise at the time that in his over-earnest search for fast-bowling success, he had hit in one of the first truths of cricket 'Down Under': in Australia, fast bowling is a young man's game. There have been perennials such as Lindwall and Miller, but they are the exceptions which do not weaken the rule, for they must rank among the "greats" of all time.

When Tyson was on his last run served as a classic example in stressing the need for the right set of conditions in which a fast bowler will "click". In Australia, during the MCC's 1954-55 tour, he was aptly called the "Typhoon". Godfrey Evans, who kept wickets for England in a record 91 Tests, said no bowler hit his gloves with the ball with such an impact as did Tyson during that tour. Supporting Evans, Arthur Morris, the Australian left-handed opening batsman, wistfully remarked at the end of the series: "Brian Statham was quick enough, but honestly, it was like facing Clarre Grimmett (the googly bowler) on getting up to his end after an over from Frank."

Tyson faded soon

The first ball that Tyson bowled against South Africa in England the following summer thumped into Evan's gloves with such force that the wicket keeper visibly went back on his heels, while an audible gasp echoed around the Trent Bridge crowd, obviously impressed by something they had not seen since the days of their own Larwood. Yet within a few months, the "Typhoon" was a comparatively gentle figure. He was never the same again.

Proving that sunshine and hard wickets are essential ingredients for a bowler to be at his fastest.

Fortunately for Tyson's successor at Northampton, the 6ft 7 inch-tall David Larter the wickets were dug up and re-made in the following seasons to give the bowler more encouragement. Larter himself steadily built up his steadily built up his stamina and speed to be in the top bracket.

Taking up the Aussies, Gordon Rorke, the husky New South Wales bowler was the fastest uncounted by the MCC during their 1958-59 tour of Australia, but it was claimed his excessively long "drag" plus a dubious action gave him an unfair advantage. "Play forward to him, and he is liable to tread on your toes" remarked one England batsman, concerned at the amount if ground stolen by Rorke in his delivery stride.

Coming on to the Australian batting, the Australian opener Colin McDonald has probably sampled more undiluted speed than any batsman since Sir Leonard Hutton was on the receiving end of the combined post-war Australian barrage of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller.

There is no doubt in McDonald's mind, in an experience ranging from Lindwall to Larter, who was the fastest of the lot: the big flash from Barbados, Wesley Hall.

In the first three Tests against the Aussies that time, Hall was the quickest, including Tyson, by some yards McDonald has said.

A lot has been said about the fast bowlers. What about the fastest and best? Fast bowlers undoubtedly help each other, hunting best in pairs, such as Lindwall and Miller. Trueman and Statham, Lindwall - the most successful genuine fast bowler in Test history (he took 228 wickets in his career, but Statham, now past 200) has certaintly been without peer for long time.