Test Cricket is rife with anecdotes and Write-ups on sensational fast bowlers ranging from the sinewy West Indians to the well-toned South Africans to the intimidating Australians. We have heard of the fearsome foursome from the Caribbean Islands in the 1970s to the methodical Aussies In The early 2000s but who is the Best of them all?
If you were to sit down with your grandchild who queries you on the best ever Test fast bowler, would you be able to come up with one name at the flick of a finger?
While searing spells of fast bowling and eras dominated by bowlers give you a faint picture, statistics tell the tale in a much more well-versed manner, aided by numbers that convey facts better than memory.
We go through this exercise in different steps. The different criteria for best fast bowlers are discussed one by one before the common names are put together and then the best identified based on further dissection.
The obvious – most Test wickets
The apparent criteria to be considered among the best fast bowlers in Test history is to rack up numbers in the wickets column. The list of top 10 wicket takers among pace bowlers in Test history has some very obvious names, some of whom would have crossed your Mind even without glancing at the numbers.
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James Anderson with 575 wickets tops this list now while Glenn McGrath and Courtney Walsh follow him with 563 and 519 wickets apiece. Dale Steyn and Stuart Broad follow with 439 and 437 apiece.
Best fast bowlers by strike rate
Judging a good fast bowler is aided by a peek at his strike rate or the number of balls he takes to pick up a wicket on an average. There are seamers who have racked up some insane numbers including strike rates of 10-15 but to do It over a career spanning a long time takes some doing which is why we have a criterion for a minimum number of wickets. Here we shorten the listen by keeping a barrier of 200 wickets and judge fast bowlers with best strike rates.
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Dale Steyn, the lanky South African sensation, on his last legs but still bursting with zeal and fervor, tops the list with a stunning strike rate of 42.1 taking a whopping 26 five-wicket hauls in his career. This is only surpassed by Sir Richard Hadlee from New Zealand, who has 36-Five wicket Hauls in his career and nine ten-wicket hauls in a match. There are a few other expected names in this list including Waqar Younis, Malcolm Marshall, Allan Donald and Fred Trueman with the nippy Vernon Philander also finding a place.
Best fast bowlers by away conditions
Fast bowlers have perennially exploited helpful conditions at home which is probably why you wouldn't see too many Asian bowlers in the list of best strike rates for fast bowlers. However, a must-have quality of a great fast bowler is to pick wickets in For this, we set out on finding the best fast bowler outside his home conditions and stumble upon the following list.
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Dale Steyn once again leads the pack with a good strike rate of 43.8, not much different from his career strike rate, and is closely followed by Sydney Barnes, Waqar Younis and Sir Richard Hadlee. Steyn's incredible feat stretches across to the Asian sub-continent Too, where his numbers as a seamer come just behind Younis and Hadlee in terms of strike rate. In Asia, Steyn has 92 wickets in 22 Tests at a strike rate of 42.9 while Hadlee has 68 in 13 Tests at 42.7. Younis, though, Leads the pack in familiar Asian conditions with a strike rate of 38.2.
Best fast bowlers by quality of opposition
Since fine-tuning the best batting teams across eras and finding how the best seamers against best batting teams in each era can be misleading, we can dig up the best six batting teams in terms of average and sort out the best fast bowlers against these teams To eliminate big questions against minnow batting outfits.
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In Test history as of today, India, Australia, England, South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the top six batting teams in terms of average. We dig in to find the best fast bowlers against these teams, sorting the top ten by strike Rate, the best criterion to judge a bowler.
Dale Steyn yet again tops the numbers, bullying his way into each of the four criteria discussed so far. Steyn has 287 wickets cumulatively at an average of 25.77 and a strike rate of 46.5. Hadlee is the other name common to all these lists With Waqar Vanishing once we cut out children teams like West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and New Zealand.
The tussle between two names
Only two names make it through to all four lists – Dale Steyn and Sir Richard Hadlee – and clearly our best fast bowler is one of these two iconic bowlers.
Now, there is a difficulty in pinpointing one name here because the two bowled in different eras when batting and bowling conditions were differently aligned.
To pick this out, we put in numbers from the various eras starting from the 1870s to the 2010s. Steyn's career extends from late 2004 to now while Hadlee was active in the 1970s and 1980s.
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Now, the batting averages in the 70s and 80s era stood around the 32-run mark while in Steyn's era it is in the range of 32.5 to 34. The corresponding bowling averages in this era are lower in Hadlee's with numbers around the 30 mark while In Steyn's it is around 31.
This is a miniscule distinction, nevertheless an important one when you factor in that Steyn topped three of the four criteria we put out. Clearly, batting was easier in Steyn's era than Hadlee's while bowling was more work than in the 70s and 80s. In spite Of that, the South African has outstanding numbers which could easily challenge and beat some of the greatest names in the list of best ever fast bowlers.
In terms of longevity and fighting through instruments too, Steyn comes parallel to Hadlee, and while some might hesitate to confer upon the "Phalaborwa Express" the title of 'greatest ever fast bowler', statistics say, Dale Steyn is indeed the best of them All.
