Everyone knows that cricket statistics don’t tell the real story of some players’ worth.
While they provide for partnerships, skills or getting out the top players and leaving the tail for other bowlers, one statistic missing is fear level.
When you worry all night at the prospect of facing a certain player, where you mention to your batting partner how scared you are to face a bowler – then that fear spreads throughout the whole side until you are mentally defeated.
Let’s go through the intimidation 11.
1. Matthew Hayden
The biggest cricket batting bully of all time. He would dare you to get him out. Pitch it up and it’s over your head, and anything short is going to the fence on either side of the wicket. Physically strong and wielding a club of a bat that Thor would be proud of, he opens the batting and destroys you from ball one.
(Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
2. Gordon Greenidge
To this day he’s the player who possessed the most pulverising cut and pull shots in cricket history. His right hand to Matthew Hayden’s left hand, this would be a partnership that would worry any bowling attack in cricket history.
3. Viv Richards
He’s the only player in my lifetime who I never saw wear a helmet. This batting colossus chewed gum while bowlers around the world worked out how to get him out. He had all the shots, and there was nothing more trademark than a ball on off stump going for four through midwicket.
4. Donald Bradman
He’s not physically imposing, it’s all in the pure batting numbers. He scared opposition. Bodyline was invented all due to him, and forever in the history of the game he will be remembered as the greatest batsman of all time.
5. Clive Lloyd
He had a drive so hard that when Gary Gilmour was asked how to bowl to him his quip was, “With a helmet on”.
6. Adam Gilchrist
Time and time again, if a side were lucky enough to have the Aussies in trouble, out walked Mr Gilchrist. His bat blazing, he showed a savagery towards any type of bowling. He could swing a game in 30 balls and quite often did.
(Photo by Tom Shaw/Getty Images)
7. Shane Warne
While he couldn’t physically hurt you, his mind games and pure bowling skill would make any international player sweat. Daryll Cullinan is famous for seeking out a psychologist in order to come to terms with the king of spin, and I’m sure he wasn’t the only one.
8. Jeff Thomson
This was cricket’s equivalent of a force unleashed. His speed and bounce are legendary, and it’s not too far-fetched reading batting accounts of the 1970s that Thommo could have been hitting speeds of 170 kilometres per hour.
9. Sylvester Clarke
Many of the batsmen around the world rued the day they saw his name on any opposition team sheet. He took the money to go to apartheid South Africa and ended up terrorising batsmen on the Currie Cup and county cricket scene. Stephen Waugh faced Mr Clarke when Sylvester was in his mid-30s and rated it the most intimidating spell that he ever faced. It’s rumoured that Viv Richards wore a helmet only once in his career. Playing county cricket, no-one got a photo of it, but who was he facing? Yes, Sylvester Clarke.
10. Patrick Patterson
Sabina Park, 1986. The footage on YouTube is scary enough, and I wasn’t even facing it. As Jeff Dujon said, “He was bowling rapid”. Big, strong and fast, this Jamaican powerhouse was another great example of West Indian depth in the 1980s.
11. Joel Garner
He was six foot eight and was either hitting your feet or your throat. His great height and the increased pace in the 1980s combined in a true sporting force.
12. Roger Harper
I’ve never seen a fieldsmen evoke the panic that Roger created as he was attacking the ball. Sublime reflexes, he was a fielder who would make any player scream “No!”.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
Holding is my fave Fast Bowler of all time. He had the run-up of a gazelle and the delivery of a cheetah. Just sublime. ---- And he is a very good commentator.
Paul
Roar Guru
Hindsights a lovely thing. I was at the SCG the day Snow cleaned up Terry Jenner and the subsequent events when he was down at fine leg. For such a long time I was sure he was a villain, but in reality, he was simply a bloke doing a job for his team. That that one incident, which he was only a bit player, made him a baddie, was simply wrong. The real villain was Illingworth, especially telling him to field on the fence, but that didn't register with this young fella at the time.
Paul
Roar Guru
Just read that story you mentioned. This is why the Roar is such a good website. Amazing doesn't begin to describe what happened in that Test. The bravery shown by Sutcliffe in particular, but the New Zealand team in general, was indescribable
Paul
Roar Guru
Just as nasty by all accounts. I wonder why he played so few Tests?
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
Devon Malcolm, specially when his radar was working. certainly Steve Waugh rated him very highly.
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
Being an opening batsman; playing against WI. Surviving with couple of blows in the body against Roberts and Holding. Then see Garner and Croft come as the back up bowlers.
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
Murali eyes.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Unless it came to elbow-flex in downing XXXX. At which point he had - and probably still has - no peer. :laughing:
Rellum
Roar Guru
If we are talking about fear of cover fieldsmen then Ricky get a run. There is a 50 min vid on youtube of just direct hits from Punter
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Actually Shoaib was clocked more than once at 160kph in match play. Re Thommo...yes, it's word. He was superbly fast and may well have exceeded 160kph during matches, but we'll never know.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
Swervin' Mervyn was verbally intimidating. Even he admitted he was surprised the umpires let him get away with it.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
And Heine, Adcock's partner.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
No that was Boonie's test debut four years earlier.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
Do it!!!
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
I think Shoaib was clocked at 161 but that was just one delivery. The word is that Thomson bowled 160 or near it most balls of 20 overs in a day in those two seasons back in the mid 1970s.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
Steve Waugh described Curtly as the supreme fast bowling machine in his 800 page autobiography. He (SW) also made no attempt to water down the fact that he had overstepped the mark by swearing directly at Curtly Ambrose - a mark of gross disrespect in most non-western cultures - but he simply stood his ground because it was important for his team mates in the dressing room (who didn't know what had been said) not to see him back down to the windies bowlers.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
Andre Nel was a poor man's Simon Jones.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
Since 1981 I have never seen a more intimidating batsman lock horns with Australian bowlers to compare with Viv Richards than Kevin Pietersen. Tendulkar and Lara may rate fractionally higher as batsman but they didn’t quite have the swagger of Viv and KP.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
True
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
But his had minuscule flex.