- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
For the sake of this discussion, this definition excludes magnificent fast-medium performers Alan Davidson, Bob Massie, Max Walker, and Glenn McGrath, among others. Let me open with the prince among quickies, Ray Lindwall.
To quote another Ray, author Ray Robinson: “Lindwall’s fast bowling changed the look of international cricket and the expression on a thousand batsmen’s face.”
And no batsman in his era could say, a la Audrey Hepburn, that they had grown accustomed to his pace.
Lindwall’s action was sheer poetry. English opener Len Hutton ranked Lindwall first amongst the hardest bowlers he faced. Lindwall’s deadliest spell was 5-8 off 49 balls in the 1948 Oval Test. In 16.1 overs he captured 6-20 as England was shot out for 52 (Hutton 30).
I had the pleasure of watching him play in two Mumbai Tests, in 1956-57 and 1959-60. In the 1956 Test, he bowled 45 overs, scored 48 not out and captained Australia for the only time because skipper Ian Johnson and vice-captain Keith Miller were injured.
In the previous Test in Madras (now Chennai), Lindwall had captured 7-43 as Australia won her first Test on Indian soil.
Lindwall inspired a generation of young men to emulate him.
Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson (alias ‘Lillian Thomson’) were the other two great Australian bowlers who put fear in the hearts of batsmen. Ask the England team of 1974-75 and you will see their knees trembling, even after 35 years.
They were terrors.
Lillee came on the international scene with a bang. In the Perth International in 1971-72, he was unplayable as he captured 8-29 as the star-studded Garry Sobers-led Rest of the World XI was routed for 59.
Among all the pace bowlers I have watched, Lillee (along with West Indian Michael Holding) was the most rhythmic, with a run-up as elegant as Wally Hammond’s cover-drive.
In 70 Tests, ‘Fot’ Lillee bagged 355 wickets (then a Test record) at 23.92, with 7-83 as his best haul. I remember his taking 6-26 in the 1977 Centenary Test as England was wiped out for 95 and the huge crowd went berserk with “Lillee, Lilleeeee” chants.
His finest memory is bowling four successive bouncers to the legendary Viv Richards in a Gillette Cup match between Western Australia and Queensland in 1974-75 that had the great batsman ducking and weaving. Lillee ended his torture by scattering his stumps with a half volley.
One can write a book on the colourfully belligerent Lillee and yet miss chunks of his highlights. He was also involved in major controversies, which have become folklore. In the 1979-80 Ashes Perth Test, his fine bowling performance was marred by his attempt to use an aluminium bat.
Worse was to come in another Perth Test two years later when he and Pakistan captain Javed Miandad had an ugly confrontation. Lillee lost his temper and aimed a public kick at Miandad.
Enraged, Miandad lifted his bat as if to strike Lillee as umpire Crafter stopped the gladiators destroying each other.
Lillee’s partner in pace-like-fire was Jeff Thomson.
The trendy phrase of 1970s was: “If Lillee won’t get ya, Thommo must”. Critics rank England’s Frank Tyson and Thommo as the fastest ever, quicker than Harold Larwood and Fred Trueman before them, and the Windies speed quartet and also Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar after them.
For Thommo, it was absolute frightening speed. After striking a batsman on the head, he would not rush to apologise. “I like to see blood on the crease”, he was quoted as saying.
Cold and menacing was Thommo, with hairs flying as he ran his 30 metres before delivering a terrifying slinging delivery.
Lillee recalls that on the 1974-75 Ashes series in Australia “all of England’s batsmen getting out through fright more than anything else.” This was perhaps an exaggeration as Thomson bowled as much at the wickets as at the head.
The slinging action gave shivering batsmen little time to find out where the ball would land.
As a person, he presented a contrast. Soft-spoken, he loved to do gardening. But on the field, he was a menace as he captured 200 wickets at 28.00 in 51 Tests. He did not just take wickets, he broke stumps and batsmens’ spirit.
Did Thommo ever bowl medium-pace? “That’s as unthinkable as Phar Lap pulling a plough or Ned Kelly playing with a popgun”, wrote his biographer David Frith.
Thomson and Lennie Pascoe were so dangerously fast in Sydney’s first-grade in early 1970s that Bankstown Hospital named an Emergency Ward after them.