In 2023, India has 3 pacers bowling 150 kph+ .... Mayank Yadav, Kartik Tyagi and Umran Malik

[Nikhil_cric]

17 minutes ago, express bowling said:

 

 

1.  With improvement in nutrition, training techniques etc. pace is increasing for the average bowler. The effort with which earlier pacers bowled 145 k+, the newer lot may bowl 150 k+. 

 

2.  Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Donald, Waqar, Steyn were all express in their quickest years and ATG pacers too.  

 

3.  There have been many ATG pacers like Steyn and Cummins, who started off as 150 k+ but later settled down to 140 k+ with odd 145 k+ spells. 

 

So, some of the express pacers we unearth may do this too 

 

 

4.  Injuries and niggles are inevitable, whether you bowl 150 k+ or 140 k+. And thus leads to some loss of pace.

 

A pacer who starts at 150 k+ will still be fast after losing some pace. A pacer who starts at 140 k+ may become medium pace like Shaheen after injury. 

 

5.  We had Bumrah doing what you said from 2017 to 2022.  That is hitting cinsistent good lengths at 140 to 145 and going up to 147 / 150 when needed. Which is ehh he is our first potential ATG pacer.

 

6.  ATG teams have always used atlesst one tearaway quick to soften batters up, even if they don't end up as ATGs. Like Lee and Johnson in tests. Both had long careers. 

 

It serves a big team goal. 

 

 

I would disagree with that. 

 

None of those bowlers were truly express. 

 

We have no evidence for the 80's bowlers. 

 

Donald bowled mostly in the 140's and peaked around 152(Eddie Smith recorded this )but that was in rare spells. 

 

He was never trying to bowl 150 every ball. 

 

 

Waqar may have been express in a few spells before his first back injury in 91/92. 

 

After that injury, there is no evidence he clocked 150 + regularly. There was a 1 hour video of SA/PAK/WI tri series in 1993/94 and 150 kph is the fastest Waqar could manage. 

 

He could not bowl multiple 150 + deliveries or hit 155 at will. 

 

Steyn 's career is all recorded . So I'm a bit surprised that he is considered an express bowler. 

 

155 kph was exceptionally rare for Steyn and he never clocked it after 2009.

 

Even if you look at the Saffer tour of Australia in 2008/09 , you might find a few deliveries above 150 kph. 

 

He was never a one paced bowler and even in his youth ,he bowled mostly in the 140's.

 

 

[rkt.india]

1 hour ago, express bowling said:

 

Yes. But Cooley is probably not a full timer.

 

And I feel Arun interacts really well with Indian lads. 

 

Both can be there.

Cooley is full time bowling coach at NCA. 

[express bowling]

16 minutes ago, Nikhil_cric said:

I would disagree with that. 

 

None of those bowlers were truly express. 

 

We have no evidence for the 80's bowlers. 

 

Donald bowled mostly in the 140's and peaked around 152(Eddie Smith recorded this )but that was in rare spells. 

 

He was never trying to bowl 150 every ball. 

 

 

Waqar may have been express in a few spells before his first back injury in 91/92. 

 

After that injury, there is no evidence he clocked 150 + regularly. There was a 1 hour video of SA/PAK/WI tri series in 1993/94 and 150 kph is the fastest Waqar could manage. 

 

He could not bowl multiple 150 + deliveries or hit 155 at will. 

 

Steyn 's career is all recorded . So I'm a bit surprised that he is considered an express bowler. 

 

155 kph was exceptionally rare for Steyn and he never clocked it after 2009.

 

Even if you look at the Saffer tour of Australia in 2008/09 , you might find a few deliveries above 150 kph. 

 

He was never a one paced bowler and even in his youth ,he bowled mostly in the 140's.

 

 

 

Average Speeds are bound to increase over the years with more scientific nutrition and training. Someone bowling high 140s in the 1980s and 1990s would have clocked early 150s in the 2020s.

 

And we are seeing these guys clock 150 k+ in T20s. In tests they will bowl at Donald and Steyn's speeds only. 

 

These 2 are very vital points. 

[Vijy]

7 hours ago, nevada said:

He and Dravid will make him trundle at 130 or make him carry drinks for a few years. 

130 is too high for dravidiot. he will ask for slower balls at 110-120

[Vijy]

7 hours ago, Nikhil_cric said:

It's all very good but the issue for me is 

 

1. Express bowlers are great for the speed gun but,historically, have never been the best bowlers 

 

2.  Have never sustained their pace for too long (Akhtar, Lee and Tait are exceptions )

 

3. Those who did sustain just for a couple of years were not even the best bowlers in their respective sides 

 

Starc was never the best out of the OZ trio 

 

 

The bowlers that win you matches across formats are those who can hit length all day , any day at 140-145 with bounce and crank it upto 150 kph on demand. But we don't seem to produce such bowlers 

 

The 150 kph + is great for optics .

But is clearly not guarantee , from history , for consistent match winning performances 

shoaib played almost 50 tests, and lee for 75+ tests. both played many ODIs too, especially lee. and we should not forget that shoaib was legit great across formats, and Lee in ODIs.

 

mayank has the tools to become a top level bowler in LOIs. still needs to play some FC/tests before I can judge him in that format.

[tapandrun]

2 hours ago, Vijy said:

shoaib played almost 50 tests, and lee for 75+ tests. both played many ODIs too, especially lee. and we should not forget that shoaib was legit great across formats, and Lee in ODIs.

 

mayank has the tools to become a top level bowler in LOIs. still needs to play some FC/tests before I can judge him in that format.

There should not be unreal expectation from bowlers to be all format bowler. Its okay if they are good in 2 and usable in suitable conditions

[Muloghonto]

14 hours ago, express bowling said:

 

Average Speeds are bound to increase over the years with more scientific nutrition and training. Someone bowling high 140s in the 1980s and 1990s would have clocked early 150s in the 2020s.

 

And we are seeing these guys clock 150 k+ in T20s. In tests they will bowl at Donald and Steyn's speeds only. 

 

These 2 are very vital points. 

I disagree. If anything, average speed is likely to've declined at the top end, because none of the pace bowlers in the last 20 years have displayed the stamina of the pace bowlers of the 70s-90s period. People like Lillee, Holding, Marshall, Donald, Ambrose etc. were all consistently 140 kph+ and consistently bowled 15-20 overs a day in tests, something very few express pacers are capable of today - and this has been pointed out by several great former WI bowlers, with the biggest difference being IN training itself- the modern bowlers simply dont run as much as part of their training.

 

[Vijy]

2 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

I disagree. If anything, average speed is likely to've declined at the top end, because none of the pace bowlers in the last 20 years have displayed the stamina of the pace bowlers of the 70s-90s period. People like Lillee, Holding, Marshall, Donald, Ambrose etc. were all consistently 140 kph+ and consistently bowled 15-20 overs a day in tests, something very few express pacers are capable of today - and this has been pointed out by several great former WI bowlers, with the biggest difference being IN training itself- the modern bowlers simply dont run as much as part of their training.

 

Andie is 42 and still bowled several balls at 135+. hard to imagine this happening in the past with WI/Aus bowlers once they crossed 35. Walsh, for instance, was mostly low 130s by that point; ditto for Ambrose. Steyn also sustained a fairly good pace into his mid to late 30s.

 

moreover, coming to your bolded part, I usually take the statements made by people about how their era was "better" (in some broad sense of the word) with caution, because of well-established nostalgia bias; I don't throw out what they say, but I am more skeptical. One can see great examples of this nostalgia bias in action when reading, say, Wisden articles about Frank Tyson, Harold Larwood, Ray Lindwall, Wes Hall, etc and even older bowlers. Many of these articles speak about how the "new" bowlers of the 1970s and 1980s were not as good as these folks. And the cycle keeps repeating.

 

Every now and then, there are clusters of players who are better by any objective yardstick: like the big 3 in men's tennis of recent past. However, a lot of times, one has to be careful about nostalgia bias.

 

Cliched though it is, the truth probably lies somewhere in between what you and @express bowling wrote. Stamina of bowlers has reduced because of greater emphasis on auxiliary exercises (gym, footer, etc), but it is also true that nutrition, sports science, etc have vastly improved and helped in this regard.

 

 

[Vijy]

7 hours ago, tapandrun said:

There should not be unreal expectation from bowlers to be all format bowler. Its okay if they are good in 2 and usable in suitable conditions

Yeah, if Mayank does well in 2 out of 3 formats at current pace, I'll be happy. 3 out of 3 is even better, of course

[Muloghonto]

53 minutes ago, Vijy said:

Andie is 42 and still bowled several balls at 135+. hard to imagine this happening in the past with WI/Aus bowlers once they crossed 35. Walsh, for instance, was mostly low 130s by that point; ditto for Ambrose. Steyn also sustained a fairly good pace into his mid to late 30s.

 

moreover, coming to your bolded part, I usually take the statements made by people about how their era was "better" (in some broad sense of the word) with caution, because of well-established nostalgia bias; I don't throw out what they say, but I am more skeptical. One can see great examples of this nostalgia bias in action when reading, say, Wisden articles about Frank Tyson, Harold Larwood, Ray Lindwall, Wes Hall, etc and even older bowlers. Many of these articles speak about how the "new" bowlers of the 1970s and 1980s were not as good as these folks. And the cycle keeps repeating.

 

Every now and then, there are clusters of players who are better by any objective yardstick: like the big 3 in men's tennis of recent past. However, a lot of times, one has to be careful about nostalgia bias.

 

Cliched though it is, the truth probably lies somewhere in between what you and @express bowling wrote. Stamina of bowlers has reduced because of greater emphasis on auxiliary exercises (gym, footer, etc), but it is also true that nutrition, sports science, etc have vastly improved and helped in this regard.

 

 

 

well it is true that Tyson, Larwood, etc. were faster than the bowlers of later era and as fast as we've ever seen- but that is due to the backfoot noball rule back then, where you'd see it in their action- they'd drag the back leg at time of delivery to basically have their front foot land an extra metre down the pitch than they are allowed to today.

I dont think Walsh, Ambrose, etc. have spoken about how the bowlers back in their time were better or faster, but they have said that they had helluva more stamina and that much is true - i've personally seen Walsh, Ambrose, Donald, Marshall etc. bowling 8-10 overs on the trot in their prime and nowadays there is hardly any pacer who can do that.

 

[Vijy]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

 

well it is true that Tyson, Larwood, etc. were faster than the bowlers of later era and as fast as we've ever seen- but that is due to the backfoot noball rule back then, where you'd see it in their action- they'd drag the back leg at time of delivery to basically have their front foot land an extra metre down the pitch than they are allowed to today.

I dont think Walsh, Ambrose, etc. have spoken about how the bowlers back in their time were better or faster, but they have said that they had helluva more stamina and that much is true - i've personally seen Walsh, Ambrose, Donald, Marshall etc. bowling 8-10 overs on the trot in their prime and nowadays there is hardly any pacer who can do that.

 

Andie bowled a 7 or 8 over spell even in the recently ended test series, though his fitness is freakish - I am not a big fan of Andie, but IMO he has the GOAT fitness of any fast-medium bowler. that said, I agree that stamina is not the same as before.

 

Interesting point about larwood, lindwall, and tyson, but even with dragging, they never seemed all that fast to me in the clips I saw. Some of tyson's spells were played in Eng TV in 70s, which I saw when visiting there.

 

this is a big digression, but the one bowler I always wanted to watch just because of the intrigue it caused in my boyhood was SF Barnes. I had this "castle in the sky" dream of being a genuine medium-fast bowler who could spin the ball. Not bowl spin at 100-105 kph (which several can do), but instead at 120 kph.

 

I don't want to detail the thread, so I will end these musings here :)

Edited April 4 by Vijy

[rollingstoned]

3 hours ago, Vijy said:

Andie is 42 and still bowled several balls at 135+. hard to imagine this happening in the past with WI/Aus bowlers once they crossed 35. Walsh, for instance, was mostly low 130s by that point; ditto for Ambrose. Steyn also sustained a fairly good pace into his mid to late 30s.

 

moreover, coming to your bolded part, I usually take the statements made by people about how their era was "better" (in some broad sense of the word) with caution, because of well-established nostalgia bias; I don't throw out what they say, but I am more skeptical. One can see great examples of this nostalgia bias in action when reading, say, Wisden articles about Frank Tyson, Harold Larwood, Ray Lindwall, Wes Hall, etc and even older bowlers. Many of these articles speak about how the "new" bowlers of the 1970s and 1980s were not as good as these folks. And the cycle keeps repeating.

 

Every now and then, there are clusters of players who are better by any objective yardstick: like the big 3 in men's tennis of recent past. However, a lot of times, one has to be careful about nostalgia bias.

 

Cliched though it is, the truth probably lies somewhere in between what you and @express bowling wrote. Stamina of bowlers has reduced because of greater emphasis on auxiliary exercises (gym, footer, etc), but it is also true that nutrition, sports science, etc have vastly improved and helped in this regard.

 

 

Bowlers until the 90s has a lot more miles by the time they turned 30+ because of how much bowling they did in first class cricket. On some other thread I think @express bowling posted this when someone said they don't want Mayank to play Ranji. 

Anderson is the exception here. 

[Need4Speed]

15 hours ago, Vijy said:

130 is too high for dravidiot. he will ask for slower balls at 110-120

Let them be women team coach it will be salvation for them

[Muloghonto]

3 hours ago, Vijy said:

Andie bowled a 7 or 8 over spell even in the recently ended test series, though his fitness is freakish - I am not a big fan of Andie, but IMO he has the GOAT fitness of any fast-medium bowler. that said, I agree that stamina is not the same as before.

 

Interesting point about larwood, lindwall, and tyson, but even with dragging, they never seemed all that fast to me in the clips I saw. Some of tyson's spells were played in Eng TV in 70s, which I saw when visiting there.

 

this is a big digression, but the one bowler I always wanted to watch just because of the intrigue it caused in my boyhood was SF Barnes. I had this "castle in the sky" dream of being a genuine medium-fast bowler who could spin the ball. Not bowl spin at 100-105 kph (which several can do), but instead at 120 kph.

 

I don't want to detail the thread, so I will end these musings here :)

 

 

Pay close attention to Tyson's back foot- see how it 'drags' at the point of his landing and note where his front foot is landing at the point of release - about a foot and half ahead of where we can land the foot today. 

Take a 145kph bowler and allow him to bowl a foot and half close to the batsman and he is effectively a 150kph bowler. Tyson, Larwood, etc. benefited from this. 

 

I had the chance to speak to Ambrose when he came to Canada in 2015. Man's an excellent basist now in a calypso band. One thing is certain - bowlers of his day ran a lot more for fitness. The interesting thing he said - and i concur - is that to bowl fast, you don't need much upper body muscles. What you need is nice strong legs and butt, with a strong core to 'transfer' the force from the legs to the arms. Which makes sense if you look back to the 80s & 90s - most fast bowlers like holding, Ambrose, Donald, etc. had tree trunks for legs and twigs for arms.

 

Edited April 4 by Muloghonto

[Vijy]

7 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

 

 

Pay close attention to Tyson's back foot- see how it 'drags' at the point of his landing and note where his front foot is landing at the point of release - about a foot and half ahead of where we can land the foot today. 

Take a 145kph bowler and allow him to bowl a foot and half close to the batsman and he is effectively a 150kph bowler. Tyson, Larwood, etc. benefited from this. 

 

I had the chance to speak to Ambrose when he came to Canada in 2015. Man's an excellent basist now in a calypso band. One thing is certain - bowlers of his day ran a lot more for fitness. The interesting thing he said - and i concur - is that to bowl fast, you don't need much upper body muscles. What you need is nice strong legs and butt, with a strong core to 'transfer' the force from the legs to the arms. Which makes sense if you look back to the 80s & 90s - most fast bowlers like holding, Ambrose, Donald, etc. had tree trunks for legs and twigs for arms.

 

agreed that old "express" pacers could add 5-7 kph by dragging, but I feel that most of them prior to 70s were not 140+ to begin with, which means that even with dragging they probably did not exceed 150 as top speed (I am obv excluding likes of thommo, roberts, marshall from the later era of 70s and 80s).

 

Also agree regd amby's statement.

[Muloghonto]

6 hours ago, Vijy said:

agreed that old "express" pacers could add 5-7 kph by dragging, but I feel that most of them prior to 70s were not 140+ to begin with, which means that even with dragging they probably did not exceed 150 as top speed (I am obv excluding likes of thommo, roberts, marshall from the later era of 70s and 80s).

 

Also agree regd amby's statement.

 

Its quite likely that some of them- like Tyson, Larwood and Trueman were in the 140-145 range, like Bumrah is. Tyson looks like a 140-145 range guy to me in these videos. 
But yes, i highly doubt Tyson was a 160 kph guy from the videos i've seen of him, including the one i posted. 
One thing to remember of the Tyson-Larwood-Trueman era, is that this is the era of uncovered, unrolled pitches and pitches would start off as flat as hell but then get uneven. 
On those pitches, balls can do funny things and make things look crazy. I know from playing on uncovered pitches in Canada for eg, i've nearly done the Tyson feat myself- bowled a ball that just took off the pitch and almost went for a six ( it would've fallen about 10-15 feet short in a real sized ground) and i barely crossed Mukesh Kumar speeds. 

But..it just happened. Must've caught a spur on the pitch and just took off. Couple that with the '+5-7 kph due to huge front foot no-ball bowling of those days' and i can see how the legends get built of extraordinary speed. 

 

I don't quite know when exactly the pitch and no ball rules changed, IIRC the pitches started to get covered and rolled by the mid-late 60s and backfoot no-ball rule was removed around the same time too or maybe a little bit later in the early 70s ( which may've played a part in 'hurricane Lillee' legends of his early years, even though he was very much a 137-142 kph range dude  like Bumrah). 

 

From what i have seen in cricket and from what i can tell of biomechanics, i can believe any era having 1-5 bowlers who are 140-145 kph guys, but to cross into the range where 145 kph is your stock ball and you are normally a 145-150kph guy is truly rare and bowlers who are in the 147-152 range as their stock balls are hyper rare. 

 

This is why i think the 70-99 period was such a cornucopia of pace bowlers, because i am confident that holding was in the 145-150kph range, Thommo was maybe slightly quicker - he certainly had the action for it and so did Waqar & Akhtar ( the slingshot action is the easiest way to generate pace as it adds a significant angular momentum energy to the ball but the angle of the arm makes consistent release point nearly impossible, hence they also spray and pray a lot), with Marshall, Bishop, Donald, Schultz, Patterson,Srinath & Croft being in the 140-145 zone as bowlers and the likes of Lillee, Ambrose, Garner, Roberts all being in the 137-142 range and the likes of McGrath,Pollock, Walsh being in the 135-140 range bowlers. 

 

 

[Strangering]

If I were BCCI, I'd hire Shane Bond as a specialized express fast bowling coach. I still have high hopes for Umran Malik. He just needs a good tutor. 

[express bowling]

It is very important that these express pacers train their bodies and hone their skills by playing First Class cricket. Atleast 5 to 6 matches a year including home tests, if any. The workload is less there. 

 

The great Malcolm Marshall played 300+ FC matches excluding tests. Most of the other great quicks played lots of FCC too.  This amount won't be possible nowadays but 5 to 6 a year is a must. 

Edited April 5 by express bowling

[Strangering]

39 minutes ago, express bowling said:

It is very important that these express pacers train their bodies and hone theirskills by playing First Class cricket.

 

The great Malcolm Marshall played 300+ FC matches excluding tests. Most of the other great quicks played lots of FCC too 

Actually, 

Not everyone's body is built for 300+ FC matches (especially today with 3 formats and way-too-much cricket). Yes, they should play First Class but not to the point of extreme mental and physical fatigue. Pro athletes train to an optimal level so they have enough in the tank to perform at their best when it matters. Putting your body through too much off field impacts your performance on field.

[express bowling]

13 minutes ago, Strangering said:

Actually, 

Not everyone's body is built for 300+ FC matches (especially today with 3 formats and way-too-much cricket). Yes, they should play First Class but not to the point of extreme mental and physical fatigue. Pro athletes train to an optimal level so they have enough in the tank to perform at their best when it matters. Putting your body through too much off field impacts your performance on field.

 

 

I am not asking for 300 FC matches from our new quicks.

 

But would be nice if they play around 25 FC matches in the next 4 years including home tests, if any.

 

Both Bumrah and Shami did that before test debut and prepared their bodies for the rigours of 5 day cricket..

 

Otherwise they won't be able to sustain intensity and pace and may break down even. 

Edited April 5 by express bowling