Lohmann from 1890s is the greatest bowler ever

[King Tendulkar]

Yes sir. My family follows cricket for generation. Lot of wisden books were available at hour house.

Just strange that in 11,000 odd posts on this site you never thought of mentioning that you though Lohmann was the greatest bowler ever in your opinion!

[Roshanrocks]

another great batsman is Amir Khan, he has played 2 matches in "Lagaan" n" awwal number" and scored unbeaten hundreds in both of them with last ball sixes wats special is that he hit both centuries in two different eras

[vvvslaxman]

hehehe ... No wonder you think WG' date='Hobbs,Hammond and DGB is where the buck stops[/quote'] Yea.. right.. i am the one who is biased. You are the most unbiased :hysterical:

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[SJS50]

Its really nice to see cricket fans, young cricket fans if I may, talk of such old timers as George Lohmann in such glowing terms. Surely Lohmann was one the truly great bowlers of his times. . . and that is how every sportsman needs to be judged if we are to be objective. But that is where my appreciation of what is said in the thread starter ends. Stats alone cant be the judge of whether or not Lohmann was the greatest bowler of all times or whether he would bowl out a top batting line up of today for under 150 runs purely because his bowling average suggests so. We, surely need to look beyond his average for this. First and foremost, Lohmann lived in an era of poorly maintained and uncovered wickets. The bounce was uneven and wickets barely lasted even without the rain which, of course, played havoc on them. To fully appreciate Lohmann’s average of 10.76 per wicket we need to at least have a look at what other top bowlers around the world were doing at that time viz 1886-1896. As has been mentioned, there were only three Test playing countries then of these South Africa were the minnows to beat all later day minnows as we will find out a little later. To take the other top bowlers from England and Australia we find the following four – two each from England and Australia , besides Lohmann himself.

England

: Johnny Briggs and Bobby Peel

Australia

: Charlie Turner and JJ Ferris

Here are the comparitive figures for those ten years of these bowlers and Lohmann

[B]Player	Tests	 W	 5w	 10w	 Avg	Wkts/Test[/B]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Lohmann	18	112	9	5	10.8	6.2[/COLOR]
Briggs	22	103	9	4	13.8	4.7
Ferris	9	48	4	0	14.3	5.3
Turner	17	101	11	2	16.5	5.9
Peel	15	72	3	1	16.8	4.8

Now we come to the question of Tests against South Africa. This was really a very poor side to be playing Test cricket. England sent teams full of debutants to South Africa, many of them never played again. This can easily be checked by anyone interested . Nevertheless let me just give one illustration. During the decade in question, South Africa played three series – all against England. Not only did they lose all three of them, they lost every single Test played without even a draw. So, as we said at the beginning, Lohmann was the finest bowler of his generation but the figures of other top bowlers around the world were pretty remarkable by today’s standards too. With so many mediocre players in the English side, invariably, the one good bowler took most of the wickets. Have a look. 1. England in South Africa 1888-89

• # of Tests : 2
• Star Bowler : Briggs
• Wkts by Briggs : 21 at 4.8 each !

2. England in South Africa 1891-92

• # of Tests : 1
• Star Bowler : Ferris
• Wkts by Ferris : 13 at 7.00 each !

3. England in South Africa 1895-96

• # of Tests : 3
• Star Bowler : Lohmann
• Wkts by Lohmann : 35 at 5.8 !

Sixty nine wickets in six test matches by three different bowlers at under 6 per wicket ! It didn’t matter what the name of that English bowler was. South Africa were so poor in their standards. In 12 test innings in the six Test matches, no South African managed a hundred. Forget a hundred, none of them managed a fifty ! It was massacre of the lambs. So in any analysis of this period, Tests involving South Africa should be kept aside for any meaningful comparison. If we do that for our five bowlers above, we get. . .

[B]Player	Tests	 W	 5w	 10w	 Avg	Wkts/Test[/B]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Lohmann	15	77	5	3	13	5.1[/COLOR]
Ferris	8	48	4	0	14.3	6
Turner	17	101	11	2	16.5	5.9
Peel	15	72	3	1	16.8	4.8
Briggs	20	85	7	3	17	4.3

Lohmann still tops the list, as befitting the leading bowler of his time, but the comparative figures are not startling. On these figures, if we claim Lohmann to be the greatest bowler of all time, we will have to give a spot to the other four, pretty high up on the same list and the current Indian team may not last long against any of them ☺ I think a fairer way of looking at the cricket of those times is to have a better appreciation of the averages of the batsmen of the times. An average of 30 or 35 was as good as fifty and more of today. Thats what we can learn from these stats. But overall we should best compare cricketers of an era, ideally with his own contemporaries and if he towers head and shoulders above them, we must grant him his place as a giant among his peers. We must see Grace and Bradman, for example, in this light instead of, say, judging Grace to be one-third the batsman the Don was ☺

[Chorazin Reto]

15 Tests is also not sufficient, if M.Hussey had of retired after 15 Tests his average would of been near 80, putting him above his peers by a substantial margin. His average now after 50 tests, a more normalised 52.16 What is being missed here is Bradman is being judged on relevance to his peers, when you look at the stats here Lohmann is at the top, but hardly by a great margin. In fact they are all very similar statwise in a comparison with contemporaries.

[patriot]

Needless to say, with such Lohmann by all accounts was a bowlling freak. Atleast his overall first class figures say that. Any footage of Lohmann ?

[SJS50]

15 Tests is also not sufficient, if M.Hussey had of retired after 15 Tests his average would of been near 80, putting him above his peers by a substantial margin. His average now after 50 tests, a more normalised 52.16 What is being missed here is Bradman is being judged on relevance to his peers, when you look at the stats here Lohmann is at the top, but hardly by a great margin. In fact they are all very similar statwise in a comparison with contemporaries.

I am not sure about 15 Tests not being sufficient in this case when you keep in mind how little Test cricket was played at that time. What's relevant is that his 15 Tests (18 if you include South Africa) were spread over ten years (1886 to 1896). His 112 wickets (in all Test matches) are not to be scoffed at. Remember only 15 bowlers, just 15, had taken 100 wickets till the end of 1950 - that is three quarters of a century. That is more than half the time test cricket has been in existence. The fact that we play so much more cricket does not mean we can completely ignore what happened in more than half of the game's history. By the way, Spofforth, one of the greatest bowlers the world had seen till world war 2 did not even get a hundred wickets. We have to find more objective criteria to judge these giants. There is enough written record of what great regard these bowlers were held in. WG Grace writing in 1890, when Lohmann had played only half his 18 Tests wrote, "... today he has no superior as a bowler.... very good judges in Australia have said he is the best bowler that ever visited them..." and then he goes to describe Lohmann's bowling in detail. He must have been good. PS: Coming to Hussey, yes his first 20 Tests yielded an average of 80 + but those 20 tests lasted all of two years and two months. Its possible to have a purple patch of that time frame but to have one of a decade is something else altogether. In his fifty Tests to date Hussey's average has come down to the low 50's which is no big deal considering how many batsmen have a fifty plus average nowadays. During the period that Hussey has been around as many as 25 batsmen have averaged in the fifties, 14 of them above Hussey in averages. If one removed those who played less than 20 innings, for example, there are still 16 batsmen with only seven below him in averages. After those first 20 Tests, Hussey's average declines as he got into a rut and a bad patch followed. Those who judged Hussey as a giant amongst world batsmen because of his making his debut in the midst of his bright patch were as mistaken as those who later called for his head for his relative failures. You have to judge a player over a period of time long enough to allow for the peak and troughs and these can not be measured by number of games played alone. By the way, Test cricket was nor given the great importance in English cricket that it later acquired. The first class game continued to be the one most top players wanted to play and excel in. Often it was difficult to get the best players to come on England's tours. A players calibre was judged by how he performed in the first class game. A hundred FC centuries, as Grace became the first to reach, was considered an awesome achievement that other batsmen around the world could only dream of. It was no less, then, for example, to Sachin's hundred international hundreds, as he should reach in the next year or two. The point here being that to judge the cricketers of those times, on statistics (if that be one's yardstick), one should also look at their first class performance. Just on the lighter side, Hobbs played 834 first class matches while Tendulkar has played just 268. Should this alone be enough to consider "The Little Master"'s record not worthy of comparison with "The Master"'s ? As I said, its on the lighter side but it still highlights the point. :)

[Rajiv]

SJS50 - from cricketweb? Mumbai

[Bumper]

15 Tests is also not sufficient, if M.Hussey had of retired after 15 Tests his average would of been near 80, putting him above his peers by a substantial margin. His average now after 50 tests, a more normalised 52.16 What is being missed here is Bradman is being judged on relevance to his peers, when you look at the stats here Lohmann is at the top, but hardly by a great margin. In fact they are all very similar statwise in a comparison with contemporaries.

All these issues have been already addressed. See post #45. On the 18 tests thingy, am not sure you understand that the English players didnt have the luxury of jumping on a plane & reaching Down Under in 2 days. It took close to six months to travel from continent to continent. The point about Hussey would prolly apply to Bradman as well. One could argue that had Bradman played 160 odd tests (like Punter or SRT) his avg could have crashed down to 50s. Works both ways! On being ahead of his peers, pls see post #45 and answer the questions that i have asked. For your convenience i repost the questions here:

a) Lohmann averages 20% BETTER than his closest rival & 40% BETTER than the 3rd ? Also keep in mind that averaging 20-40% better as a bowler is heck a lot more difficult than doing the same as a batsman. b) Besides if you look at Lohmann as a whole package interms of 5fers, 10fers, S/R, E/R, #wickets, Avg he is waay ahead of his peers. c) How do you explain that NONE of his peers top Lohmann even on a single bowling metric ? If this is not domination of peers, I dont know what is ? d) Show me a bowler in the history of the game, who towers over not only his peers, but also over top bowlers of other eras iin EVERY SINGLE category like Lohmann has done.

[Bumper]

And also by dwelling on the margin over peers, there is this ridiculous supposition that a player (however good he is) cannot be considered the greatest ever, unless he outperforms (interms of avg) by 50-100%. For arguments sake, had there been two Bradmans (both being equally good) would that immediately water down each other's achievements. See the point ?

[SJS50]

SJS50 - from cricketweb? Mumbai

Right :)

[vvvslaxman]

And also by dwelling on the margin over peers' date=' there is this ridiculous supposition that a player (however good he is) cannot be considered the greatest ever, unless he outperforms (interms of avg) by 50-100%. For arguments sake, [b']had there been two Bradmans (both being equally good) would that immediately water down each other's achievements. See the point ?

There were no two Bradmans. We can always argue "Assuming Bradman was never born" .. "Assuming England never sent convicts to Australia", Assuming Australia was never discovered"...

[The Outsider]

And also by dwelling on the margin over peers' date=' there is this ridiculous supposition that a player (however good he is) cannot be considered the greatest ever, unless he outperforms (interms of avg) by 50-100%. For arguments sake, had there been two Bradmans (both being equally good) would that immediately water down each other's achievements. See the point ?[/quote'] Yes! And, not for no reason has there been only one Bradman - not only in cricket - but in the history of all ball games as has been statistically proved : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman#World_sport_context Either come up with a more robust statistical analysis or quit doubting Bradman's domination...sounds fair?

[Rajiv]

Right :)

Welcome Paaji, what an honor. I was hoping you would land here one day and looking forward to your stay Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome SJS - old school classic admirer of Cricket from Mumbai If you don't mind, would love your intro here http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=33861

[Bumper]

My question is this. Are you guys assuming that two greatest ever players of simialr expertise can never co-exist in an era ? How about Warne & Murali for spinners ? How do you account for the fact that the margin over peers never accounts for such a combo ? In this very thread I see the same guys who touted Bradman as the greatest, casting doubts on similar claims made on Lohmann, only because he averages just 20% better than his rival ? How are you guys certain that Lohmann isn't the greatest ever inspite of him averaging half (even 1/3rd) of what modern day bowler averages (the bowler equivalent of a 99 avg) and that by avg, S/R, #wickets, E/R, 5fer, 10fer - every category possible, he has bettered his peers. How come NONE of his peers mastered him in even a SINGLE category. Is that not domination ? Why then is Lohmann not touted the greatest ever bowler ? I'll tell you why people raise eyebrows when Lohmann is touted as the greatest ever. Because enough sport pundits/journals haven't beat it down our throat that he is the greatest ever. So it sounds a bit odd to make such claims that not many has claimed/acknowledged before. Too bad Lohmann debuted 50 years before Bradman did.

[Bumper]

There were no two Bradmans. We can always argue "Assuming Bradman was never born" .. "Assuming England never sent convicts to Australia"' date=' Assuming Australia was never discovered"...[/quote'] Before you go off on a tangent with your rhetorics, try to understand what the post is trying to convey. Read my post above & answer the qns if you can.

[Lurker]

I'll tell you why people raise eyebrows when Lohmann is touted as the greatest ever. Because enough sport pundits/journals haven't beat it down our throat that he is the greatest ever. So it sounds a bit odd to make such claims that not many has claimed/acknowledged before. Too bad Lohmann debuted 50 years before Bradman did.

Or...... It could also be that George Lohmann's performance, as splendid as they are/were, are not exactly Bradmanesque. Bradman's performance was twice better than anyone else out there, Lohmann not as much. Please check his comparison with Bobby Peel, as SJS50 has pointed out.

Lohmann still tops the list, as befitting the leading bowler of his time, but the comparative figures are not startling. On these figures, if we claim Lohmann to be the greatest bowler of all time, we will have to give a spot to the other four, pretty high up on the same list and the current Indian team may not last long against any of them

Well said. here's to hearing more from you :hatsoff:

[Bumper]

Yes! And, not for no reason has there been only one Bradman - not only in cricket - but in the history of all ball games as has been statistically proved : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman#World_sport_context Either come up with a more robust statistical analysis or quit doubting Bradman's domination...sounds fair?

How do you know that the teams of Bradman's era are any better than Bangladesh, Zimbabwe & Ireland. As for the odd fast bowler, even Shahdat Hussain (of Bangladesh) bowls at 140 kph. Does that make Shahdat or Bangladesh any competitive ? Pit a Mohd Yusuf against these teams & he will average a ton every series. For the record Mohd Yusuf averages 251 against Bangladesh & 68 against Zimbabwe. Against the combo of Bangladesh Yusuf totals 1119 runs @ 101.72. I'd say he'd have bettered Bradman.

[Roshanrocks]

kingtendulkar deserves an award for unearthing the true greatest bowler in history :adore: